THE  MAN  JESUS 

Being  a  brief  account  of  the  Life 

and  Teaching  of  The  Prophet 

of  Nazareth 


BY 
MARY  AUSTIN 


HARPER  &•  BROTHERS   PUBLISHERS 
NEW  YORK  AND   LONDON 


THE  MAN  JESUS 

Copyright,  1915,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  September,  1915 

G-P 


Moses  commanded  us  a  law,  even  the  inheritance  of  tlie 
congregation  of  Jacob. — Deut.  xxxm,  4. 

[The  above  was  taught  to  every  Hebrew  child  by  his  father 
as  soon  as  the  child  was  old  enough  to  speak.  A  little  later 
he  was  taught  the  first  part  of  the  Shema,  which  follows. 
The  whole  Shema,  including  Deut.  ix,  13-21,  and  Num.  xv, 
37-41,  was  recited  by  every  devout  Hebrew  morning  and 
night.] 

Hear,  O  Israel,  the  Lord  our  God  is  One  Lord: — 

And  tnou  snalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thine 
neart  and  with  all  thy  soul  and  witli  all  thy  miglit.  And 
these  words,  wnicli  I  command  tliee  tnis  day,  snail  le 
in  thine  neart:  and  tnou  snalt  teach  them  diligently  to 
thy  cnildren,  and  tnou  snalt  talk  of  them  wnen  thou  sittest 
in  thine  nouse,  and  wnen  tnou  walkest  ly  the  way,  and 
wnen  thou  liest  down  and  wnen  tnou  risest  u£.  And 
tnou  snalt  oind  them  for  a  sign  ufion  thine  nand,  and 
they  snail  oe  as  a  frontlet  oetween  thine  eyes.  And  thou 
snalt  write  them  u£on  the  £osts  of  thy  nouse,  and  on  thy 
gates. — Deut.  vi,  4-9. 


822558 


THE   MAN   JESUS 


T  71  THEN  Tiberius  Csesar  had  been  some  fifteen 
V  V  years  upon  the  seat  of  Roman  Empire  there 
arose,  in  an  inconsiderable  quarter  of  his  realm,  a 
man  of  a  destiny  so  tragic  and  a  character  so  com- 
manding that  a  score  of  centuries  have  scarcely 
served  to  dim  the  appeal  of  his  unique  personality. 
He  arose  upon  the  Bridge  of  the  World,  shaken  as  it 
was  with  the  passing  of  Roman  power  between 
Egypt  and  Asia,  among  the  people  whose  voice 
among  the  nations  was  as  the  voice  of  one  crying 
small  wares  in  the  midst  of  traffic.  They  were  the 
Keepers  of  the  Bridge.  Their  race  had  been  born 
amid  its  ribs  and  buttresses;  they  had  been  swept 
from  it  by  Egypt  and  Assyria,  whence,  after  gen- 
erations of  captivity,  they  had  found  their  way 
back  to  it  with  the  instinct  of  homing-pigeons.  They 
sat  upon  the  Bridge  between  the  desert  and  the  sea 

and  trafficked  with  the  nations  going  past;    they 

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THE    MAN    JESUS 


trafficked  even  for  the  right  to  sit  and  traffic  in  their 
ancient  seats.  Sometimes  they  fought  for  it,  but  that 
was  only  when  they  were  threatened  in  their  sole 
other  distinction.  For  they  were  not  only  a  race  of 
traffickers;  they  dreamed  greatly. 

When  the  bazars  were  shut  and  the  smoke  of  the 
evening  sacrifice  gone  up,  they  forgathered  upon  the 
housetops  with  their  feet  tucked  under  them  and 
dreamed  a  splendid  and  orderly  heaven  with  Him  of 
the  Ineffable  Name  sitting  in  the  midst  of  the  vault, 
surrounded  by  rank  on  rank  of  Seraphim  and 
Cherubim,  angels  and  archangels,  all  singing  and  with 
flaming  wings.  They  went  further  and  dreamed  a 
world  of  men  in  the  same  order  and  symmetry,  a 
world  dripping  with  milk  and  honey  where  there 
should  be  none  hurt  and  none  crying  any  more,  and 
the  lion  and  the  lamb  lying  down  together.  It  was 
perhaps  a  shopkeeper's  heaven,  with  everything 
ticketed  and  tucked  away  in  it — think  of  a  people 
undertaking  to  name  the  whole  heavenly  host ! — but 
it  surpassed  in  grandeur,  in  singleness  of  conception, 
the  hybrid  theogonies  of  the  pagan  world  as  much 
as  the  Grseco-Roman  Zeus-Pater,  the  Thunderer, 
was  surpassed  by  their  High  and  Holy  One  Who 
Inhabiteth  Eternity. 

And  for  the  right  to  worship  this  One-God  in  their 
own  fashion  and  to  keep  undefiled  His  holy  places  the 

Jews  would  fight  on  occasion,  but  it  was  the  only 

4 


THE   MAN   JESUS 


thing  they  would  fight  for.  Their  two  great  national 
achievements — the  winning  forth  from  Egypt  and 
the  return  from  captivity — they  owed  not  to  the 
sword,  but  to  that  quality  which  has  made  them 
before  all  others  a  business  people.  Once  religious 
freedom  was  assured  to  them,  they  made  what 
terms  they  could  for  a  degree  of  political  inde- 
pendence. 

These  are  two  things  to  remember  about  the  Jews 
in  thinking  of  the  man  who  arose  among  them:  that 
their  dreaming  was  all  of  God,  and  that  when  there 
was  anything  of  great  import  to  be  done  they  thought 
of  every  other  way  to  go  about  it  rather  than  by 
fighting.  It  is  well  to  keep  these  in  mind  because, 
however  much  a  man  of  any  race  may  seem  to 
oppose  the  genius  of  the  tribe  that  produced  him, 
it  is  impossible  that  he  should  not  take  from  them 
in  some  fashion  the  line  of  his  direction.  The 
third  item  in  the  resolution  of  the  external  forces 
that  determined  the  mold  of  the  man  Jesus,  was 
the  fact  that  he  was  sprung  from  a  mountain 
people. 

That  was  a  country  split  into  shoulders  and 
summits,  into  narrow,  knife-cut  valleys  and  flowering 
oases  between  high,  tumbled  barrens.  It  followed 
that  the  inhabitants  were  divided  into  tribes  and 
half  tribes,  and  these  into  factions.  It  is  always  so 

in  mountain  countries  where  field  is  separated  from 

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THE    MAN    JESUS 


field  by  waste,  and  village  is  buttressed  against  vil- 
lage. Carmel  has  its  foot  in  the  sea,  Lebanon  is  cut 
off,  Hermon  the  white-haired  stands  up  over  Naph- 
tali,  Gilead  and  Ephraim  are  divided.  The  Samar- 
itans were  despised  by  the  Judeans,  who  found  the 
Galileans  crude;  and  the  Galileans  themselves 
doubted  if  any  good  thing  could  come  out  of  Naza- 
reth. When  they  needed,  therefore,  a  common  bond 
they  did  not  find  it,  as  other  tribes  are  prone  to  do,  in 
political  advantage  or  identity  of  material  interests; 
\  they  found  it  in  the  common  dream,  in  the  reality 
of  a  common  spiritual  experience.  They  fought  for 
Jehovah  and  the  holy  places,  even  though  they  could 
not  agree  among  themselves  which  places  were  the 
holiest.  That  was  how  it  happened  that  the  people 
who  never  achieved  anything  like  national  integrity 
for  themselves,  except  for  the  briefest  periods,  were 
the  first  to  effect  a  movement  toward  the  universal 
state.  For  when  their  great  man  came,  he  walked, 
though  they  failed  for  the  time  to  appreciate  it, 
in  the  deep-rutted  track  which  Hebrew  thought 
had  made  for  him. 

The  first  that  was  heard  of  him  was  in  connection 
with  one  of  those  singular  characters  which  seem  to 
have  arisen  from  time  to  time  among  all  ancient 
peoples,  a  true  prophet  by  all  the  marks,  of  the 
stripe  of  Malachi  and  Habakkuk  and  Jeremiah. 

This  John,  called  the  Baptist,  must  have  been  a 

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THE    MAN    JESUS 


Galilean,  an  inhabitant  of  that  portion  of  the  Bridge 
which  reached  from  the  roots  of  Lebanon  past 
Naphtali,  past  Tabor  and  Hermon,  past  the  plain 
of  Esdraelon  stretching  to  the  narrow  Phoenician 
coast,  down  the  Rift  of  Jordan  to  the  dead,  desert  sea. 
For  this  assumption  we  have  the  natural  temper  of 
his  mind  and  the  fact  that  he  was  amenable  to  the 
civil  authority  of  Herod,  Tetrarch  of  Galilee.  He 
took  a  true  prophet's  liberty  with  his  sovereign 
by  telling  him  exactly  what  he  thought  of  him,  and 
Herod,  for  his  part,  accorded  John  the  customary 
recognition  of  kings  to  prophets  by  shutting  him 
up  in  prison  and  finally  making  an  end  of  him.  But 
before  that  much  had  happened. 

About  the  time  that  the  shadow  of  madness  began 
to  grow  upon  the  mind  of  Tiberius  Claudius  Nero 
and  the  hateful  race  of  informers  fattened  under  the 
hand  of  Sejanus,  when  Herod  Antipas  was  living 
openly  with  his  brother's  wife,  and  Aretas,  father  of 
his  legal  consort,  breathing  war  against  him,  this 
John  began  suddenly  to  preach  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  at  hand.  To  the  orthodox  Jew  the  phrase, 
Kingdom  of  Heaven,  meant  the  specific  realization 
of  the  great  national  dream,  an  institution  so  Hebraic 
in  its  scope  and  limitation  that  it  was  doubtful  if 
the  world  at  large  had  any  place  in  it  beyond  a 
vague  consignment  to  an  outer  circle  of  darkness 
where  there  was  wailing  and  gnashing  of  teeth. 

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THE    MAN    JESUS 


Therefore  when  John  began  to  proclaim  its  imma- 
nence and  declare  it  in  that  high  impassioned  style 
which  is  the  hall-mark  of  prophetic  inspiration,  the 
little  world  of  Jewry  went  out  to  hear  him. 

In  the  first  place,  it  might  be  true;  and  in  the 
second,  John  was,  on  the  whole,  very  good  enter- 
tainment. He  was  an  ascetic  dressed  in  a  garment 
of  camel's-hair  girt  about  with  skins,  living  off  the 
land,  on  seeds  of  sparse-grown  desert  shrubs  and 
honey  from  the  hiving  rocks  along  the  bluffs  of 
Jordan.  Then  there  was  this  interesting  new  ritual 
of  baptism  —  that  was  a  poor  Jew  indeed,  who 
couldn't  make  room  in  his  life  for  one  more  cere- 
monial— and  he  had  a  lively  condemnation  for  such 
as  are  in  authority,  which  is  always  pleasing  to  those 
not  themselves  among  the  authorities.  Also  there 
were  devout  souls  who  were  in  expectation,  looking 
for  the  great  day  of  Israel.  Among  them  was  the 
man  from  Nazareth. 

He  must  have  come  on  foot  from  his  home,  a  day's 
journey,  down  the  deepest  rift  in  the  world — it  is 
not  for  mere  poetizing  that  the  river  is  called  Jordan, 
the  Down-comer — to  the  ford  where  Naaman  washed, 
where  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  passed  over  and 
the  reeds  are  still  shaken  in  the  wind  out  of  Haran. 
The  soil  hereabout  is  as  red  as  a  red  heifer,  streaked 
with  marl.  The  river  comes  down  between  ribbons 
of  deep  poisonous  green  in  a  jungle  of  tamarisk  and 

8 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


oleander.  Westward  Judea  lifts  by  terraces,  dim 
under  the  heat  haze,  scarred  by  volcanic  waste; 
east  away  lie  the  level  tops  of  Gilead,  out  of  which 
the  prophet  Elijah  had  so  mysteriously  burst  upon 
the  times  of  Ahab.  Many  thoughts  of  Israel  past 
and  future  must  have  flocked  with  the  crowds  that 
went  out  to  John's  preaching  in  the  shut  valley  of 
the  Jordan.  Crowds  there  must  have  been  far 
beyond  what  is  indicated  by  the  meager  report,  for 
the  prophet  succeeded  not  only  in  attracting  the 
attention  of  the  reigning  house,  but  in  staving  off 
his  end  for  a  year  or  two  by  reason  of  his  popularity. 
But  for  his  survival  in  history  and  in  the  world 
beyond  the  Bridge  he  was  debtor  to  the  man  from 
Nazareth. 

Of  this  man,  up  to  the  moment  of  his  contact  with 
John  and  the  reorganization  of  his  spiritual  forces 
which  took  place  immediately  afterward,  very  little 
is  known.  His  very  name  of  Joshua  has  come  down 
to  us  only  in  the  Greek  form  of  Jesus.  Beyond  that 
we  have  the  mere  mention  of  his  parents,  Joseph 
and  Mary,  brothers  James  and  Jude,  Simon  and 
Joses,  and  unnamed  sisters.  There  is  a  tradition 
that  he  was  born  in  Bethlehem  while  his  mother 
was  on  a  journey,  all  of  which  is  set  down  with  great 
circumstantiality  by  one  Luke,  a  physician  writing 
in  the  last  quarter  of  the  first  century;  but,  if  true, 
Jesus  never  referred  to  the  place  and  never  revisited 

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THE    MAN    JESUS 


it.  He  was  brought  up  in  the  hill  town  of  Nazareth 
to  his  father's  trade  of  carpenter.  This  much  seems 
certain.  For  the  rest  we  have  a  great  body  of 
legend  such  as  collects  readily  about  any  man  of 
singular  gift  or  destiny.  These  in  their  place  should 
be  examined;  for  the  light  they  throw  on  the  way 
in  which,  within  a  generation  after  his  death,  he 
came  to  be  regarded,  they  have  much  to  commend 
them.  But  of  plain  fact  there  is  this  precisely:  a 
young  Jew,  something  under  thirty,  of  the  better 
class  of  working-men,  by  name,  Joshua  Ben  Joseph, 
receiving  the  rite  of  baptism  from  a  wild  anchorite 
on  the  mud-banks  of  a  muddy  river. 

There  had  been  preaching  first,  perhaps  a  psalm- 
singing.  It  would  have  been  in  the  nature  of  a 
pilgrimage,  this  exodus  from  Jerusalem;  from  Sa- 
maria, from  the  parts  of  Galilee  and  the  east-lying 
Grseco-Syrian  Decapolis  to  hear  the  prophet.  It  was 
a  time  when  men  looked  every  way  for  salvation. 
John  they  heard  with  an  instinctive  attempt  to 
connect  him  with  their  past,  with  those  of  his  own 
trade  prophecy.  It  was  so  they  could  best  judge 
what  his  teaching  might  mean  to  the  future  of  Israel. 
In  their  dreams  the  Jews  looked  for  a  Messiah, 
but  in  their  hearts  they  expected  Elijah,  greatest 
of  all  True-Speaking.  Among  the  faithful  to  this 
day  is  not  the  door  left  open  on  the  Paschal  evening 

for  the  return  of  the  prophet?    It  was  hereabout 

10 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


that  he  was  last  seen  of  men,  parting  the  Jordan 
with  his  garment,  passing  over  dry-shod  before  he 
was  taken  up.  ...  (Oh,  the  chariots  of  Israel  and  the 
horsemen  thereof!")  Memories  like  this  prompted 
inquiry. 

"Who  art  thou,  then?"  No  doubt  as  they  waited 
a  supernatural  thrill  went  over  them.  It  was  a 
time  and  a  place  when  almost  anything  might  hap- 
pen. But  John  had  an  answer  for  them. 

"The  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  Wilderness.  Pre- 
pare ye  the  way  of  the  Lord!"  So  now,  they  knew 
him.  He  was  the  forerunner.  This  also  was  ac- 
cording to  scripture.  But  there  was  more  of  John's 
message,  and  that  astonishing. 

Of  old  time  the  prophets  had  preached  to  kings 
and  high  priests,  to  the  nation  in  its  entirety,  re- 
buking tyrannies  and  putting  down  false  gods,  re- 
storing alike  the  altars  and  the  ancient  liberties. 
The  new  note  that  came  in  with  John  was  the  note 
of  personal  repentance,  and  not  that  only,  but  fruit 
meet  for  repentance  brought  forth  on  every  bough, 
"For  the  axe  is  laid  to  the  root  of  the  trees:  there- 
fore every  tree  which  bringeth  not  forth  fruit  shall 
be  hewn  down  and  cast  into  the  fire."  Judge  how 
this  was  received  by  the  Hebrew  who  counted  him- 
self safe  in  being  of  the  stock  of  Abraham.  "And 
think  not,"  John  warned  them,  "to  say  within 

yourselves,  We  have   Abraham  to  our  father,  for 
2  11 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


I  say  unto  you  that  God  is  able  of  these  stones  to 
raise  up  children  unto  Abraham." 

This  was  the  astonishment  and  the  affront  of 
John's  preaching.  The  Kingdom  was  at  hand,  and 
being  a  Jew  wasn't  of  itself  sufficient  to  get  you  into 
it.  It  seems  certain  that  many  of  his  hearers,  among 
them  Herod,  rejected  such  doctrine.  But  Herod 
John  reproved  openly  for  his  adulteries,  and  to  the 
Pharisees  and  Sadducees  when  he  saw  them  come  to 
his  baptism  he  scoffed,  "O  ye  generations  of  vipers, 
who  hath  warned  you  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to 
come?" 

You  perceive  here  the  ancient  prophetic  touch 
both  in  the  temper  of  his  mind  and  the  imagery. 
It  would  have  been  the  end  of  the  dry  season,  and 
all  along  the  heights  of  Gilead  quick  fires  ran  in 
the  stubble.  In  his  mind's  eye  John  saw  the  tribes 
of  formalists  and  hypocrites  like  swarms  of  vipers 
and  scorpions  scuttling  for  safety  before  the  fires 
unquenchable.  But  for  the  common  people  who 
came  asking  sincerely  what  they  should  do,  John 
had  another  answer,  "He  that  hath  two  coats  let 
him  impart  to  him  who  hath  none,  and  he  that  hath 
food  let  him  do  likewise."  To  the  publicans  he 
advised,  "Exact  no  more  than  that  which  is  ap- 
pointed to  you";  and  to  the  soldiers,  "Do  violence 
to  no  man,  neither  exact  anything  wrongly,  and  be 
content  with  your  wages." 

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THE    MAN    JESUS 


An  all  too  brief  report,  but  explicit.  In  that  last 
clause  is  swept  away  every  possibility  of  supposing 
that  John  came  to  head  a  revolt  against  the  poweA 
of  Rome  or  to  reconstruct  the  social  order.  This 
is  important  in  connection  with  what  happened 
afterward,  for  the  teaching  of  the  Baptist  is  the 
/sole  personal  influence  that  can  be  traced  in  the 
ywork  of  the  man  from  Nazareth.  Words,  phrases 
of  the  Forerunner,  cropped  up  again  in  his  ministry; 
its  opening  slogan  was  the  same  call  to  repentance. 
On  the  death  of  its  founder  the  first  definite  move- 
ment of  the  Christian  organization  was  in  the  di- 
rection of  John's  program — they  had  all  things  in 
common;  he  that  had  two  coats  imparted  to  him 
that  had  none,  and  he  that  had  food  did  likewise. 
Whether  the  disciples  owed  it  most  to  Jesus  or  to 
John,  it  marks  for  the  two  men  a  common  source  of 
inspiration,  a  common  expectation. 

The  message  of  the  Baptist  was  the  thread  by 
which  Jesus  felt  his  way  to  the  heart  of  his  own 
mission.  The  kingdom  was  at  hand,  it  was  to  be 
prepared  for,  but  the  preparation  had  not  all  to 
do  with  God  and  man;  it  was  bound  up  somehow 
with  the  relations  between  man  and  his  neighbor. 
All  this  could  hardly  have  come  of  one  preaching. 
Years  afterward  Paul  found  Apollos,  an  Alexandrine 
convert,  spreading  the  baptism  of  John  as  far  afield 
as  Ephesus.  All  of  which  goes  to  show  the  perti- 

13 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


nence  of  his  doctrine  and  the  man's  grip  on  his  au- 
dience. 

Of  this  there  were  both  numbers  and  variety. 
The  river  here  meets  the  highways;  legionaries 
went  by  between  Petra  and  Damascus,  caravans 
from  Egypt  to  the  parts  of  Arabia.  At  the  ford  the 
thick  ribbon  of  tamarisk  and  oleander  called  the 
Pride  of  Jordan  is  set  back  by  the  canebrake. 
Old  herons  go  a-fishing  there;  the  hot  air  of  the  Rift 
is  filled  with  the  pestiferous  hum  of  flies.  By  day 
there  would  be  the  noise  of  the  caravans  and  the 
purr  of  the  sleek  water;  by  night  the  friendly  pil- 
grim camps,  the  brush  fires  of  the  wood-cutters; 
at  times  the  roar  of  a  lion  in  the  jungle,  and  the 
snorting  of  the  tethered  asses.  Over  all  the  voice 
of  the  prophet  prevailing. 

"Repent  ye,  repent  ye,  for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
is  at  hand  .  .  .  but  one  mightier  than  I  cometh,  the 
latchet  of  whose  shoes  I  am  not  worthy  to  unloose, 
whose  fan  is  in  his  hand,  and  he  will  thoroughly 
purge  his  floor  and  will  gather  the  wheat  unto  his 
garner,  but  the  chaff  he  will  burn  with  a  fire  un- 
quenchable. 

"I  have  baptized  you  with  water,  but  he  shall 
baptize  you  with  fire  and  the  holy  spirit." 

Among  those  who,  hearing,  went  down  to  receive 
the  rite  of  cleansing  was  the  young  man  from 
Nazareth;  as  he  went  he  felt  the  heavens  opened 

14 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


and  the  Spirit  of  God  descend  upon  him;  and  as  it 
were  a  voice  saying,  "This  is  my  beloved  son  in 
whom  I  am  well  pleased." 

§ 

All  the  God-tales  come  straight  out  of  the  heart 
of  man;  all  the  devil-tales  also. 

There  is  a  part  of  us  which  lies  remote  from  the 
region  of  material  sense,  open  to  all  manner  of 
undetermined  influences.  We  are  torn  by  these 
things,  exalted,  cast  down,  informed,  and  illumined 
to  a  degree  surpassing  what  comes  to  us  through  the 
conscious  intelligence.  But  when  we  speak  of  them 
it  can  only  be  in  terms  shaped  for  us  by  the  latest 
guess  at  the  nature  of  the  disturbance,  God,  demon, 
or  the  spirits  of  ancestors.  The  young  man  from 
Nazareth,  as  he  passed  under  the  Baptist's  hand 
through  the  water  of  baptism,  knew  what  sounded 
in  his  soul  for  the  voice  of  God  the  Father.  He  was 
led  by  it  up  out  of  the  Rift  of  Jordan  into  the  Wilder- 
ness. But  of  all  that  happened  to  him  there  we 
know  no  more  than  can  be  conveyed  in  a  tale  he 
made  of  it,  a  kind  of  allegory  of  the  soul's  immaterial 
conflict  in  terms  of  devil  and  angels. 

It  was  so  in  those  days  men  spoke  to  one  another 
of  experiences  that  passed  below  the  threshold  of 
exterior  sense.  Doubtless  when  he  told  it,  it  was 
so  understood,  as  a  thing  experienced  rather  than 
seen.  Not  for  hundreds  of  years  did  the  story  of 

15 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


the  temptation  put  on  the  gross  materiality  under  * 
which  the  Middle  Ages  knew  it. 

That  it  was  his  most  significant  experience  we 
gather  from  the  fact  that  it  was  the  only  thing  that 
ever  happened  to  Jesus  which  he  thought  worth 
speaking  about.  That  he  spoke  of  this  with  such 
particularity  as  to  impress  it  on  all  his  disciples  is 
our  warrant  for  believing  that  nothing  else  out  of 
the  ordinary  ever  had  happened  to  him.  What  he 
saw,  what  he  lived  through,  what  he  heard  talked 
about  as  a  carpenter  at  Nazareth  was  so  undistin- 
guished a  part  of  the  community  experience  that 
we  are  free  to  restore  it  from  the  copious  researches 
of  scholarship.  Behind  this  thin  veil  of  parable 
we  have  his  own  account  of  the  essential  elements 
of  his  genius. 

Here  then  is  the  story  of  the  carpenter  in  the 
Wilderness  as  he  told  it.  After  he  had  heard  sound- 
ing through  all  his  soul  the  acknowledgment  of  his 
sonship,  himself  part  and  parcel  of  the  divine  being, 
he  went  up  and  out  of  the  Ghor  into  the  Wilderness 
of  Judea  between  the  brook  Cherith  and  the  vine- 
yards of  Engedi,  a  terrible  blank  land,  treeless, 
spined  with  low  shrubs  from  under  which  the  adder 
starts.  He  was  around  and  about  in  it  forty  days 
fasting.  He  saw  vultures  sailing  and  the  blue  wall 
of  Moab  through  the  mist  of  evaporation  from  the 
great  salt  sea — "smoke  going  up  for  ever" — all 

16 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


opalescent  in  the  unclouded  light,  but  saw  no  man. 
He  laid  himself  open  to  the  sense  the  desert  gives 
of  being  possessed,  of  begin  held  and  occupied  by 
personality  and  power.  Forty  days  and  nights  the 
spirit  led  and  eluded  him,  and  at  last  he  grappled 
with  it.  Then  said  the  tempter,  Jesus  being  faint 
with  hunger,  "If  thou  be  the  son  of  God  command 
that  these  stones  be  made  bread."  And  again, 
seeing  he  got  nothing  by  that  method,  the  devil 
set  him  on  a  high  place,  as  it  were  the  pinnacle  of 
the  temple,  and  bade  him  cast  himself  down,  since 
if  he  were  the  true  son  of  God  the  angels  should 
have  charge  over  him,  lest  he  so  much  as  dash  his 
foot  against  a  stone.  Finally  from  a  high  moun- 
tain the  devil  showed  him  the  kingdoms  of  this  world 
and  the  glory  of  them,  saying,  "All  these  things  will 
I  give  if  thou  wilt  fall  down  and  worship  me." 

Answering  out  of  the  deep  wells  of  scripture,  the 
man  from  Nazareth  answered  his  own  soul. 

He  had  gone  into  the  desert  a  carpenter  with  the 
word  of  John  in  his  ears  and  the  call  of  God  in  his 
consciousness ;  he  came  out  of  it  prophet  and  teacher. 
To  know  the  full  force  in  his  life  of  the  answer  he 
found  to  the  questing  Spirit,  we  must  know  what 
went  in  with  him  other  than  John's  doctrine.  I  do 
not  mean  what  schooling,  what  human  experiences, 
what  things  observed  and  noted  among  men,  for  of 
these  he  had  no  more  than  was  common  to  scores 

17 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


of  other  young  men  who  went  down  to  John's 
baptism.  It  was  none  of  these  things  which  en- 
abled him  to  clear  himself  at  the  stroke  of  revela- 
tion from  the  old  Hebrew  notion  of  man  apart  from 
God  as  the  sheep  are  apart  from  the  shepherd,  of 
another  nature  and  kind  from  him.  For  Israel 
thought  of  God  as  a  sheep  thinks  of  a  shepherd. 
One  who  led  by  green  pastures,  fed,  fended,  or  de- 
stroyed as  He  thought  good  for  them.  But  Jesus, 
from  the  first  we  hear  of  him,  comes  filled  with  the 
sense  of  divine  kinship,  possessed  of  it  as  a  son  is 
possessed  of  the  attributes  of  a  father — an  idea  so 
germane  to  us  now  that  we  can  scarcely  realize  with 
what  effect  of  the  heavens  being  opened  it  burst 
upon  him. 

It  was  not,  then,  any  question  of  the  relationship 
between  himself  and  God  that  drove  him  to  the 
Wilderness.  There  is  something  still  to  seek  for 
the  clear  understanding  of  the  parable  of  the  Temp- 
tations;— Something  there  was  between  Jesus  and 
John,  something  between  Jesus  and  his  disciples, 
which  was  either  so  well  understood  as  to  require 
no  explanation  or  so  profoundly  felt  that  it  lay  be- 
yond the  reach  of  expression.  I  find  it  in  the  one 
feature  of  the  Hebrew  religion  which  distinguishes 
it  from  all  its  contemporaries; — in  the  conviction 
of  the  reaJit^of_righteousness. 

The  cult  of  Jdiuvaii  had  outlived  on  its  own 

18 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


ground  the  gods  of  Ninevah  and  Tyre,  of  Egypt  and 
Babylon;  it  maintained  itself  in  the  face  of  dying 
Graeco-Romanism  by  that  one  article  of  its  faith 
which  was  never  lost  sight  of  even  in  its  worst 
apostasy — namely,  that  ethical  Tightness  is  no 
mere  matter  of  opinion,  but  a  living  principle.  The 
pagan  had  no  use  whatever  of  his  gods  except  in 
what  they  could  do  for  him;  he  never,  so  to  speak, 
knew  exactly  where  to  have  them.  In  some 
fashion  he  recognized  an  essential  element  in 
Things,  dung-heaps,  orchards,  fevers — which,  if  he 
could  but  put  himself  in  harmony  with  it,  could 
be  "worked." 

When  it  could  no  longer  be  worked  in  his  favor 
he  got  him  a  new  god  amenable  to  another  sort  of 
persuasion.     But  Jehovah   was   the   god   of   Israel 
conquering  or  Israel  conquered.     This  point  toward 
which  we  struggle  so  slowly  with  all  our  science, 
our  knowledge  of  heredity,  and  the  constitution  of 
human    society,    was    the    common    possession    of 
Jesus  and  his  people;  the  revelation  of  righteousness*] 
as  a  thing  to  be  eternally  sought  after,  whether  one] 
lost  or  won  by  it. 

This,  then,  was  what  lies  behind  and  renders  in- 
telligible the  fragments  of  scripture  with  which 
Jesus  met  the  importunities  of  his  personal  life, 
coming  to  him  in  the  form  of  the  arch-tempter  on 
the  mount  of  the  Wilderness. 

19 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


In  the  first  and  second  of  these  we  have  a  direct 
answer  to  two  of  the  most  vexed  and  mistaken 
problems  of  his  name  people.  To  the  suggestion 
that  he  should  appease  the  desires  of  his  man-nature 
by  causing  stones  to  be  made  bread,  Jesus  had  an- 
swered that  man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but 
by  every  word  which  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth 
of  God.  It  is  impossible  to  think  of  this  as  present- 
ing itself  to  the  man  from  Nazareth  as  a  personal 
problem  only — the  problem  of  youth  with  its  hun- 
gry desires  for  food,  a  mate,  houses,  trappings. 
But  whether  settled  for  himself  or  humanity,  the 
question  was  never  reopened.  This  is  no  story  of 
a  plain  man  finding  himself,  but  of  a  soul  unselfed 
from  the  beginning,  apprised  of  his  power,  sure  of 
his  high  calling,  seeking  behind  the  material  lack, 
the  essential  disharmony  which  his  message  was  to 
heal.  Socially  minded  as  he  showed  himself  to  be, 
he  must  have  faced  here  and  struck  out  of  his  own 
course  the  futility  of  attempting  to  achieve  the 
kingdom  by  the  relief  of  immediate  social  discom- 
fort. Hungry  as  his  time  was,  sore  with  poverty 
and  injustice  and  oppression,  when  he  went  back  to 
it,  it  was  not  with  any  palliative,  but  with  the  keen 
sword  of  the  spirit.  The  misery  of  his  world  rose 
up  against  him,  assailed  him  through  his  great  gift 
of  compassion,  threatened  to  engulf  him;  but  al- 
ways we  see  him  striking  clear  of  it,  committing 

20 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


himself  to  the  Word  with  such  confidence  as  a  bird 
commits  itself  to  the  air  or  a  great  fish  to  the 
deep. 

But  if  Jesus  rejected  the  principle  of  direct  relief  \ 
as  a  means  of  bringing  the  kingdom  to  pass,  he  was  j 
even  more  explicit  in  his  condemnation  of  direct! 
political  action  as  establishing  it.     For  the  devil  in 
Jesus'  time  was  no  mere  hoof-and-tail  bogy,  but  that 
Lucifer  whose  seat  was  once  in  heaven.     And  what 
else  can  the  worship  of  him  mean  in  connection  with 
the  kingdom  of  this  world  and  the  power  and  glory 
of  them,  than  the  use  of  satanic  means,  political  in- 
trigue, jealousy,  faction,  conspiracy,  by  means  of 
which  the  rebellious   angels  fell?     We  shall  come 
closer  than  this  to  the  mind  of  Jesus  touching  the 
social  organization,  but  we  shall  get  nothing  more 
decisive  than  his,  "Get  thee  behind  me!" 

For  the  second  item  of  the  adventure  of  a  soul 
in  the  Wilderness  there  can  be  no  interpretation 
possible  except  we  begin  with  what  sooner  or  later 
must  be  allowed  to  Jesus,  that  he  was  a  mystic.  In 
saying  this  no  more  is  implied  than  is  true  in  some 
degree  of  every  one  of  us.  It  is  to  say  that  the  larger 
half  of  him  lay  consciously  in  the  region  of  which 
we  have  already  had  occasion  to  speak,  the  un- 
mapped region  of  the  subconsciousness.  Your  true 
mystic  is  one  who  lives  at  home  in  that  country  to 

which  most  of  us  repair  infrequently  on  a  visit,  or 

21 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


are  snatched  by  compelling  incidents  of  passion  or 
suffering.  The  notion  that  mysticism  savors  some- 
how of  impracticality  leads  us  to  deny  its  existence 
in  ourselves,  which  amounts  to  a  denial  that  there 
is  anything  in  us  which  is  immaterial  or  uncompre- 
hended.  To  such  as  these  it  is  a  surprise  to  know 
that  the  states  of  mysticism  preserve  an  orderly 
sequence  and  are  accompanied  by  definite  gains  and 
powers.  Such  powers  the  man  from  Nazareth  at- 
tained. To  have  endured  this  particular  tempta- 
tion he  must  already  have  been  aware  of  them  when 
he  went  up  out  of  Jordan. 

Almost  the  first  we  hear  of  Jesus  on  his  return  to 
Galilee,  was  as  a  healer  of  men's  bodies  and  a  reader 
of  their  minds.  Such  powers  cannot  be  thought  of 
as  coming  leaping  to  the  demand;  they  are  acquired 
by  pains  and  labor.  If,  then,  we  concede  that 
when  Jesus  went  into  the  Wilderness  he  knew 
himself  possessed  of  such  capabilities,  we  have  in 
the  incident  of  the  pinnacle  from  which  he  was  to 
cast  himself  down,  a  symbol  of  the  peculiar  tempta- 
tion of  the  gifted.  To  make  himself  safe,  to  make 
himself  wondered  at,  set  apart,  this  is  the  devil's 
bait  for  the  saint  and  the  adept.  Whether  or  not 
this  was  what  Jesus  implied  in  his  personal  narra- 
tive, it  is  borne  out  by  his  whole  attitude  toward  his 
special  capacities.  All  through  his  career  he  dis- 
played, in  the  use  of  his  extraordinary  gifts,  a  reti- 

22 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


cence  and    sense  of  proportion    unequaled    among 
men  of  genius. 

This  was  the  fruit  of  the  Wilderness,  the  subordi- 
nation of  bodily  and  material  needs  to  the  spiritual, 
based  on  the  perception  of  the  spiritual  as  the  only 
reality;  the  consecration  of  gifts  to  service  rather 
than  to  personal  aggrandizement;  the  rejection  of 
political  action  as  a  means  of  attaining  the  desired 
social  equilibrium.  If  this  were  not  the  implicit 
meaning  of  the  parable  it  was  at  least  a  thing  achieved 
within  the  scope  of  his  personality.  Throughout 
the  remainder  of  his  life  he  is  plainly  seen  so  to  di- 
rect his  own  operations.  For  in  this  he  excelled 
all  the  saints,  in  his  spiritual  efficiency.  What  he 
had  determined  on  the  mountain  he  went  forth  to 
preach  in  Galilee. 


great  love  hast  thou   loved  us, 

O  Lord  our  God. 

And  with  much  overflowing  faity  hast  thou  pitied 
us, 

Our  father  and  our  king. 

For  the  sake  of  our  fathers  who  trusted  in  theet 
and  thou  taughtest  them  the  statutes  of  life, 

Have  mercy  ufion  us! 
Enlighten  our  eyes  in  the  law; 

cause  our  hearts  to  cleave  to  thy  commandments; 
unite  our  hearts  to  love  and  fear  thy  name; 
and  we  shall  not  le  £ut  to  shame. 

^fflorld  without  end. 

For  thou  art  a   God  who  firefiarest  salvation; 
and  thou  hast  chosen  us  from  among  all  nations 

and  tongues; 

and  hast  in  truth  brought  us  nearer  to  thy  great 
name. 

Selah! 

That  we  may  lovingly  praise  thee  and  thy  unity. 
Blessed  le  the  Lord  who  in  love  chose  his  people 
Israeli 

[A  prayer  which  was  part  of  the  synagogue  service  during 
the  time  of  Jesus.] 


n 

OF  this  Herod  against  whom  John  inveighed  we 
shall  see  enough  to  warrant  some  description. 
A  Jew  by  religion,  Greek  in  culture,  though  with  a 
touch  of  Semitic  magnificence,  Roman  by  affiliation ; 
handsome,  undisciplined,  perfumed,  wily,  he  no 
doubt  deserved  the  epithet  of  Fox,  which  the  man 
of  Nazareth  afterward  applied  to  him.  Fearing 
Rome  a  little  and  his  constituents  as  much  as  rulers 
of  the  Jews  have  always  feared  them,  he  neverthe- 
less claims  a  greater  share  of  our  attention  than 
either  of  the  other  sons  of  Herod  the  Great,  among 
whom  his  kingdom  was  divided. 

Archelaus,  Ethnarch  of  Idumea,  Judea  and  Sa- 
maria, came  into  direct  conflict  with  the  Sanhedrin 
at  Jerusalem,  was  worsted  by  them,  deposed  and 
superseded  by  a  procurator  under  the  hand  of  the 
Emperor.  Philip  on  the  north,  touching  the  bor- 
ders of  Galilee,  loved  peace  and  got  it,  and  got 
nothing  else;  but  if  Herod,  called  Antipas,  Tetrarch 
of  Galilee,  were  judged  less  objectionable  than  his 
father,  it  was  because  his  restricted  field  gave  him 
fewer  opportunities  for  getting  himself  disliked. 

3  27 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


Of  those  that  he  had  it  cannot  be  said  that  he  neglect- 
ed any  of  them. 

On  the  present  occasion  he  was  discovering  him- 
self in  the  irritating  position  of  a  man  who  has 
flouted  society  and  the  gods  on  the  grounds  of  a 
justifying  passion,  and  finds  that  neither  the  gods 
nor  society  has  accepted  his  justification.  During 
a  recent  visit  to  Rome  he  had  become  enamoured  of 
his  brother's  wife,  whom  he  had  brought  away  with 
him;  whereupon  Aretas,  King  of  Arabia,  father  of 
his  legal  consort,  assaulted  his  southern  border.  It 
was  while  his  affairs  were  at  this  pass  that  John 
arose,  shaking  out  the  banner  of  prophetic  denun- 
ciation. 

Evidently  those  who  accepted  his  moral  conclu- 
sions judged  John  competent  to  deal  with  the  situa- 
tion. The  man  from  Nazareth,  though  made  one 

Uof  his  adherents  by  the  rite  of  baptism,  passed  to  his 
own  country  without  any  attempt  to  support  the 

k  Baptist's  attack  upon  existing  conditions.  If  from 
the  mount  of  temptation  he  had  seen  the  thin  line 
of  the  legionaries  fumbling  the  dry  passes  of  the 
Arabian  border,  or  at  the  ford  of  Jordan  detach- 
ments going  down  from  the  garrison  at  Capernaum 
to  eke  out  the  Tetrarch's  slender  resources,  it  waked 
in  him  no  impulse  of  resistance  to  the  established 
order.  Wrapt  still  in  his  personal  revelation,  he 
came  up  out  of  the  Rift  into  Galilee. 

28 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


From  the  hills  of  Nazareth  one  sees  the  ships  of 
the  Empire  low  like  a  flock  of  gulls  on  the  rim  of 
the  Mediterranean;  below  him  the  oleanders  are 
pink  against  the  whitewashed  walls,  and  blunt, 
dark  oaks  overhang  the  strips  of  tillage.  A  lit- 
tle town,  a  butt,  a  Jack  Dullard  of  a  town  among 
the  smart  new  cities  of  Tiberias  and  Capernaum 
with  their  Greek  theaters  and  Roman  garrisons; 
a  little,  old,  shave-head,  bewigged  Hebrew  house- 
wife of  a  town,  to  judge  by  the  proverb,  which 
suckled  a  prophet  and  did  not  know  him.  But 
at  Capernaum  converged  all  the  roads  that  went 
over  the  Bridge:  new  Roman  roads,  Phoenician 
coast  roads,  the  oldest  roads  in  the  world  between 
Egypt  and  Asia;  and  the  traffic  of  the  world  went 
by  on  them.  Herod  rebuilt  Tiberias  and  had  a 
palace  there;  he  fortified  Sepphoris;  village  touched 
village.  Here,  as  to  a  theater  more  befitting  his 
mission  than  hill-bent  Nazareth,  Jesus  moved, 
new-born  from  the  Wilderness.  It  is  believed  he 
had  a  house  there,  but  of  a  shop  and  the  appurte- 
nances of  his  trade  there  is  no  mention. 

On  omissions  slight  as  this  a  world  sick  with  the 
sloth  of  the  Middle  Ages  made  of  him  a  kind  of 
respectable  mendicant.  One  finds  him,  however, 
going  about  with  other  householders,  decent  folk 
owning  their  own  business,  employing  hired  servants, 
paying  their  own  scores,  and  obliged  to  ask  no  man's 

29 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


leave  if  they  chose  to  lay  aside  their  work  for  a 
season  to  go  a-proselyting.  It  is  of  record  that  the 
Emperor  Domitian,  having  accepted  the  Davidic 
descent  for  the  family  of  Nazareth,  sent  for  what 
remained  of  them,  fearful  lest  they  set  up  a  belated 
claim  of  royalty.  There  were  brought  to  him  two 
grandsons  of  Jude,  the  brother  of  Jesus,  who  showed 
him  the  callouses  of  their  hands  and  confessed  to 
owning  about  forty  acres  of  land,  from  which  they 
made  their  living  and  the  taxes.  Does  the  pos- 
session of  that  forty  acres  in  any  way  account  for 
the  freedom  with  which  the  brother  of  Jude  drew 
upon  the  sowing  and  the  reaping,  the  wine-press 
and  the  orchard,  for  the  figure  of  the  Kingdom?  He 
drew,  in  fact,  far  less  on  his  own  trade  and  his 
father's.  Too  much  has  been  made  of  his  being  a 
carpenter — every  good  Jew  taught  his  son  a  trade; 
Paul  was  a  tent-maker,  and  he  stood  before  kings 
and  was  versed  in  pagan  philosophies. 

Nor  was  there  anything  in  the  conditions  in  Galilee 
at  the  time  from  which  to  draw  the  pathetic  figure 
of  poverty.  Galilee  of  the  Gentiles  was  a  great 
hostelry;  trade  flourished,  olive-orchards  thronged 
the  slopes,  vines  crowded  in  the  valleys.  Here  the 
Semitic  strain  had  received  a  free  admixture  of  Greek 
and  Phoenician;  the  speech  of  its  people  was  fluent, 
idiomatic.  Moreover,  it  was  a  time  of  great  leisure, 
every  seventh  day  was  an  idle  day,  every  seventh 

30 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


year  a  Sabbath.  The  people  read  much  in  the  only 
books  they  had,  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  and 
speculated  freely.  Like  all  thinking  people,  they 
were  turbulent.  Recently  Judas  the  Gaulonite  headed 
an  attempt,  of  amazing  courage  but  little  descretion, 
to  break  the  Roman  power,  holding  the  payment 
of  tribute  little  less  than  slavery.  Two  thousand 
of  Herod's  soldiers  revolted.  It  was  a  time  not 
so  much  of  lack  as  of  enormous  social  and  economic 
disequilibrium.  In  short,  a  time  very  much  like  our 
own.  Across  the  active  material  life  of  its  three 
million  population  the  beauty  of  the  land  struck 
like  an  inspiration.  Hot  harvesters  lifted  their  fore- 
heads to  the  wind  that  poured  down  from  Hermon; 
on  the  lake  sails  glittered. 

It  was  a  fat  land,  but  rebellious,  humming  with 
Zelots,  Baptists,  Essenes — a  people  jeoparding  their 
life  unto  death.  All  in  all  an  excellent  field  for  hope 
to  flourish  in,  such  a  hope  as  the  man  from  Nazareth 
carried  back  from  the  Rift  of  Jordan,  of  a  reconstruct- 
ed social  order  in  which  imposition  should  wither 
and  servitude  be  replaced  by  service.  A  fat  land 
and  well  watered — but  the  taxes,  the  taxes!  It  is 
not  prolonged  underfeeding  that  makes  revolution- 
ists, but  enforced  compliance  in  the  overfeeding  of 
others.  And  here  now  was  this  new  war  of  Herod's 
with  its  levies  and  impositions! 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  Jesus  went  about  quietly 

31 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


fishing  for  men.  He  found  Peter,  and  Andrew,  his 
brother,  and  the  sons  of  Zebedee,  owners  of  fishing- 
smacks  on  Gennesaret.  One  thinks  of  him  going 
about,  tall  and  personable — a  figure,  at  least,  of 
which  none  ever  complained  of  any  lack — free  strid- 
ing; and  a  Jew,  mind  you,  a  high-nosed  Jew  with  eyes 
at  once  veiled  and  piercing,  long-haired  and  bearded. 
The  hair  and  the  beard  have  become  so  fixed  in  tra- 
dition that,  whether  or  no,  we  must  accept  them. 
No  doubt  it  was  one  of  the  first  pieces  of  personal 
information  that  began  to  be  circulated  about  him; 
and  they  go  with  the  temperament.  One  could  have 
found  him  oftenest  about  the  water-front  when  the 
fishing-fleet  came  in,  clad  in  a  long  undergarment 
of  linen  and  over  it  a  woolen  mantle,  brown  and 
white  or  blue,  girded  with  leather,  and  always  with 
the  turban.  When  he  stood  up  in  the  synagogue 
of  a  Sabbath  to  expound  the  scriptures,  the  linen 
garment  girded  about  the  breast,  the  mantle  would 
be  all  white  with  a  fringe  upon  it,  and  the  long  ends 
of  the  turban  floating  over  the  hair  and  the  mantle. 
In  some  such  guise  he  went  about  Capernaum, 
sowing  the  Word  and  waiting.  And  at  last  the 
thing  for  which  he  waited  happened. 

Herod,  vexed  at  his  failure  to  scatter  the  armies 
of  Aretas,  and  no  doubt  egged  on  by  Herodias,  who 
must  have  been  in  a  fury  to  have  her  name  bruited 
about  at  the  crossroads  as  an  adulteress,  had  taken 

32 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


John  and  shut  him  up  in  prison.  He  shut  him  up 
in  that  stark  fortress  which  has  the  Dead  Sea  on 
the  west  and  the  dead  sand  and  black  rock  of 
Machserus  on  all  other  sides  of  it;  but  in  the  face  of 
John's  popularity  he  lacked  hardihood  to  make  any 
other  end  of  the  matter. 

There  had  been  doubts  and  disaffections  in  Herod 
the  Great's  time,  because  of  his  being  no  true  He- 
brew, but  an  Idumean.  Herod  characteristically 
has  been  reported  as  burning  up  the  books  of  geneal- 
ogy in  the  temple,  proving  himself  a  Jew  by  putting 
it  beyond  the  possibility  of  anybody's  disproving 
it.  But  this  double  fear  and  vexation  of  Herod 
Antipas  is  the  true  mark  of  Israel.  John  as  a  stirrer- 
up  of  the  people  must  be  treated  as  a  nuisance;  as 
a  prophet  he  was  to  be  venerated.  Herod  accom- 
plished both  by  putting  him  in  jail  and  afterward 
giving  his  disciples  access  to  him.  So  for  a  time  the 
voice  of  the  Wilderness  was  stilled,  but  no  sooner 
had  the  news  of  John's  imprisonment  penetrated  to 
the  rich  lake  region  of  lower  Galilee  than  it  rose 
again  in  new  accents.  It  was  the  voice  of  Jesus 
beginning  to  preach  openly  and  say,  "Repent; 
repent;  for  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand." 

§ 

The  rise  of  any  great  man  in  a  community  is 
always   an   astonishment.     His   essential   processes  ¥ 
are  secret  or  obscured  by  ebullitions  which  present 

33 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


themselves  as  offenses  in  the  general  eye.  And  the 
general  eye  and  ear  are  so  completely  filled  with 
their  own  affairs;  that  which  finally  disconcerts 
them  and  claims  anew  their  attention  is  the  least 
essential  part  of  the  message  which  the  great  have 
to  deliver.  The  interest  of  the  crowd,  like  the  snake, 
darts  at  the  thing  moving. 

About  the  end  of  the  latter  rains,  when  it  seemed 
certain  that  the  Baptist  was  not  to  be  let  preach 
again,  the  young  carpenter,  who  had  recently  come 
from  Nazareth,  stood  up  in  the  synagogue  at  Caper- 
naum and  began  to  expound  the  scriptures.  There 
had  been  the  customary  singing  of  psalms,  the  prayer 
beginning,  "With  great  love  hast  Thou  loved  us  .  .  ." 
and  so  down  to  "Blessed  be  the  Lord  Who  in  love 
chose  Ilis  people  Israel"  After  that  the  methurge- 
man  read  from  the  Law,  reading  in  Hebrew,  in  which 
language  alone  the  scriptures  were  permitted  to  be 
written,  and  translating  into  the  vernacular.  There 
was  a  little  light  burning  always  in  the  synagogue 
since  the  captivity  of  Babylon,  a  tiny  oil-fed  flicker 
before  the  place  where  the  Law  was  kept.  It  was  a 
symbol,  that  little  flame,  of  the  little  light  that  was 
still  in  Israel,  feebly  burning  in  the  midst  of  a  de- 
cadent formalism. 

The  light  burned,  the  reader  closed  the  roll  of 
the  Law,  the  leaders  of  the  synagogues  in  the 
chief  seats,  facing  the  congregation,  looked  down 

34 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


their  beards  at  their  hands  folded  upon  their  knees; 
the  women  stirred  faintly  in  the  jalousied  gal- 
leries; and  the  carpenter  rose  and  sat  in  the  seat 
of  the  reader.  There  was  nothing  out  of  the  ordi- 
nary in  this.  Whosoever  felt  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
upon  him  was  privileged  to  speak  in  the  synagogue, 
but  it  was  a  privilege  taken  seriously.  Perhaps  noth- 
ing would  have  come  of  this  particular  preaching 
had  there  not  been  a  man  present  afflicted  with  one 
of  those  forms  of  mental  disorder  which  were  ranked 
as  possession  by  an  unclean  spirit.  Roused  by  the 
unfamiliar  figure,  by  something  impressive  and 
pertinent  in  the  preacher's  manner,  the  spirit  cried 
out  at  him.  Did  it  really  cry:  "I  know  thee  who 
thou  art,  Thou  Holy  One  of  Israel!"  guessing  in 
some  dim  way,  as  the  afflicted  do,  the  man's  power 
and  destiny,  or  was  it  merely  a  disordered  outbreak 
recognizing  the  speaker  as  one  seen  too  often  with 
Zelots  and  Baptists,  fomenters  of  social  discontent? 
"I  know  you,  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Let  us  alone!" 
The  old  cry  of  the  social  una wakened.  "What  have 
we  to  do  with  thee?  Thou  art  come  to  upset  con- 
ditions and  invite  Rome  to  destroy  us."  Certainly 
the  words  would  bear  that  interpretation.  So  they 
sounded  yesterday  around  a  soap-box  on  the  street 
corner.  And  there  were  men  in  that  congregation 
who  could  remember  in  the  outbreak  of  Judas  the 
Gaulonite  the  punishment  Rome  meted  to  revolu- 

35 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


tionists.  What  fixed  their  attention  on  this  occasion 
was  that  Jesus  rebuked  the  interruption  as  the  cry 
of  uncleanness  and  commanded  the  evil  spirit  out 
of  the  afflicted.  They  began  to  wonder  what  doc- 
trine this  could  be,  and  to  observe  among  them- 
selves that  he  taught  not  as  the  scribes,  but  as  one 
having  authority. 

It  appears  that  immediately  following  the  syna- 
gogue service  Jesus  went  home  with  Simon  Peter 
to  dinner,  and  found  Peter's  wife's  mother  sick  of  a 
fever.  Possibly  she  had  had  a  draught  from  a  practis- 
ing physician,  compounded  of  three  black  spiders 
collected  from  a  tomb,  and  an  Egyptian  herb  or 
two,  but  it  is  much  more  likely  that  some  neigh- 
bor had  practised  for  her  the  Talmudic  remedy  of 
an  iron  knife  tied  by  a  braid  of  the  sufferer's  hair  to 
a  thorn-bush  while  reciting  the  first  five  verses  of 
the  third  chapter  of  Exodus.  Now  comes  the  car- 
penter, taking  her  by  hand,  lifting  her  up,  and  im- 
mediately the  fever  left  her. 

In  order  to  understand  how  the  news  of  such  heal- 
ing would  spread  with  almost  frenzied  hope  to  the 
afflicted,  one  must  pause  a  moment  over  the  pitiful 
inefficiency  of  the  healing  art  of  that  period.  For  in 
that  day  the  practice  of  medicine  had  been  corrupted 
from  the  primitive  knowledge  of  cleanliness  and 
simples  to  a  mass  of  superstition.  The  cause  of 
all  sickness  was  a  mystery,  and  it  was  believable 

36 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


that  cures  could  be  equally  mysterious.  The  poor 
were  particularly  in  evil  case;  for  failing  eyes  there 
was  no  relief,  for  deformities  no  appliances,  for  an- 
guish no  twilight  sleep  of  anesthetics,  only  neglect 
and  avoidance  and  the  unendurable  pest  of  flies. 
Associated,  as  it  had  always  been,  with  all  manner 
of  hocus-pocus,  mental  healing  was  still  more  reliable 
than  the  pharmacopoeia  of  the  time.  Between  touch- 
ing the  robe  of  a  prophet  and  a  dose  of  mummy 
powder  as  a  specific  of  internal  disorders,  the  chances 
of  recovery  were  immeasurably  in  favor  of  the 
prophet. 

As  this  is  the  first  record  of  healing,  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  exercise  of  it  had  come  upon  Jesus  as 
a  mere  incident  in  the  rush  of  spiritual  certainty 
which  had  launched  him  upon  his  ministry.  Filled 
with  the  power  of  his  revelation,  he  had  overflowed 
with  it  in  the  direction  of  the  immediate  human  im- 
pulse and  was  as  little  prepared  as  any  one  for  what 
followed.  That  evening,  as  soon  as  the  sun  was  set 
and  the  Sabbath  inhibition  taken  away,  from  every 
house  in  the  neighborhood  sick  were  brought  forth 
and  laid  in  the  narrow  street  about  Simon  Peter's 
door.  Here,  as  afterward,  the  man  from  Nazareth 
yielded  to  the  appeal  of  human  misery,  but  he  was 
more  than  troubled  by  it. 

No  doubt  he  saw  himself,  as  from  this  time  we 
must  think  of  him,  as  having  raised  the  cry  of  uni- 

37 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


versal  deliverance,  and  hearing  it  drowned  in  the 
wails  of  immediate  material  anguish.  As  soon  as 
it  was  light,  without  disturbing  the  household,  he 
slipped  away  out  of  town;  he  traversed  the  crescent 
plain  of  Gennesaret  between  the  stone  walls  and  the 
hedges  of  prickly  pear,  and  sought  the  treeless  foot- 
hill ridges.  It  was  spring  of  the  year,  and  thick 
dew,  called  the  blessing  of  Hermon,  lay  on  every- 
thing. Palms  at  Tiberias  showed  darkly  against  the 
polished  lake,  the  olive-orchards  turned  the  silvered 
under  side  of  leaves.  White  fire  broke  out  along  the 
orchard  row,  anemones  scarlet  in  the  crevices,  lark- 
spurs, blue-eyed  veronica,  and  the  hillside  grass  all 
swimming  with  the  silken  sails  of  poppies.  Binding 
all  the  fields  together  ran  the  wild  mustard,  and  the 
birds  of  the  air  lodged  in  its  branches. 

Past  it  all  he  went  to  the  windy  ridges  from 
which  one  had  the  sea  and  the  white  slope  of  Her- 
mon, with  the  Jordan  roaring  to  the  deepest  rift  in 
the  world  far  below  him.  Here  he  prayed,  and  here, 
when  the  day  was  somewhat  advanced,  Peter  found 
him  with  the  word  that  all  men  sought  him.  But 
when  all  was  said  Jesus  would  not  go  back  into 
Capernaum. 

"Let  us  go  into  the  next  town  that  I  may  preach 
there,"  he  insisted;  "for  this  purpose  came  I  forth." 
Perhaps  he  still  hoped  to  avoid  the  swift  congre- 
gation of  the  miserable  which  clogged  about  his 

38 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


knees  thenceforth  wherever  he  moved;  he  was  all 
bent  upon  his  message.  It  was  in  this  fashion,  ac- 
companied by  Peter  and  those  that  were  with  him, 
he  began  to  go  about  through  the  cities  of  Galilee, 
teaching  in  the  synagogues,  John  being  in  prison, 
Herod  in  jeopardy  with  Aretas,  Tiberius  on  the  seat 
of  Rome,  and  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  some 
forty  years  distant. 


He  shall  thrust  out  sinners  from  the  inheritance; 
he  snail  utterly  destroy  the  ftroud  spirit  of  the 

sinners, 

as  a  potter's  vessel  with  a  rod  of  iron  shall  he 
IreaJt  in  pieces  all  their  substance. 

And  he  shall  gather  together  a  holy  fteoftle  whom 
he  shall  lead  in  righteousness: 

And  he  shall  judge  the  trile  of  the  fteoftle  that  hath 
leen  sanctified  ly  the  Lord  his  God. 

For  he  shall  not  ftut  his  trust  in  the   horse  and 

rider  and  low; 
nor  shall  he  multiply  unto  himself  gold  and 

silver  for  war; 
nor  ly  shifts  shall  he  gather  confidence  in  the 

day  of  battle. 

Tending   the   flock   of  the    Lord   with    faith    and 

righteousness ; 
and  he  shall  suffer  none  among  them  to  faint  in 

their  pasture. 
In  holiness  shall  he  lead  them  all,  and  there  shall 

oe  no  ftride   among   them   that  any  should 

be  ofifiressed. 

[Verses  from  a  hymn  of  the  Pharisees,  sung  during  the 
time  of  Jesus  and  influencing  the  Messianic  ideal.  From  the 
translation  of  Ryce  and  James.] 


Ill 

NO   people   can   hear   absolutely   a   new   thing. 
The  message  that  is  delivered  to  them  is  one 
thing;    the  message  heard  is  already  half  in  the 
hearts  of  the  hearers. 

Jesus  did  not  invent  the  phrase  Kingdom  of 
Heaven;  what  he  did  contrive  in  the  course  of  twelve 
or  fourteen  months'  teaching  was  to  give  to  it  en- 
tirely new  meanings.  As  it  stood  in  the  heart  of 
Israel  it  was  a  vision  of  a  social  order  in  which 
governorship  should  be  of  God  and  all  temporal 
authority  superseded  by  the  Word.  Working  on 
this,  the  imagination  of  the  time  produced  prodigies. 
More  and  more  as  the  Gentile  world  pressed  upon 
Jewry,  it  had  to  be  accounted  for;  how  could  the 
Kingdom  come  to  a  people  knowing  not  Jehovah? 
Opinions  differed  as  to  whether  Rome  should  be  cast 
into  outer  darkness  or  be  permitted  to  feel  upon  her 
neck  the  heel  of  Jewish  autonomy.  It  might  be 
that  the  Davidic  line  should  be  restored  as  a  mere 
symbol  of  governance,  or  there  would  be  twelve 
thrones  of  the  twelve  princes  of  the  House  of  Israel. 
Differences  of  this  kind  were  not  doctrinal;  they  af- 

4  43 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


forded  a  pleasant  variation  to  speculation.  As  the 
tension  of  social  arid  political  unrest  which  ended 
in  the  revolt  and  fall  of  Jerusalem  increased,  they 
took  on  a  prophet  cast.  It  was  expected  that 
swords  should  fall  from  heaven  and  come  flaming  in 
the  midst  of  men,  the  earth  should  yawn  and  all 
the  widening  rifts  be  filled  with  dead.  The  apoca- 
lypse, the  vision  of  Judgment,  was  a  favorite  form 
of  literature  of  the  period. 

There  is  a  general  impression  that  prophetic  writ- 
ing had  ceased  in  Israel  from  the  time  of  the  old 
testament  to  the  gospels;  but  in  fact  there  was  a 
continuous  but  diminishing  flow  of  it.  The  Jews 
had  no  profane  history.  All  their  writings  were  ac- 
counts of  God  in  His  dealings  with  them,  either  as 
individuals  or  as  a  nation.  Books  of  this  kind, 
bringing  the  story  of  Israel  down  to  his  own  time, 
were  in  circulation,  and  had  been  read  by  Jesus; 
he  quoted  from  them;  from  the  book  of  Enoch  he 
took  the  title  which  he  very  early  began  to  apply 
to  himself,  The  Son  of  Man. 

But  if  no  importance  was  attached  to  individual 
conceptions  of  the  Kingdom  and  the  manner  of  its 
inauguration,  all  Jewry  was  divided  even  to  the 
sword  and  the  spirit  about  the  proper  preparation 
for  it.  Theoretically  Israel  was  a  people  united  in 
the  law,  one  in  worship;  actually  it  was  split  into 
sects  and  factions  over  minutiae  of  fulfilment.  There 

44 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


was  that  old  quarrel  between  the  Samaritans  and 
the  Judeans  concerning  the  mount  upon  which  God 
should  be  worshiped,  which  had  resulted,  in  the 
time  of  Cyrenius,  in  the  Samaritans  being  disbarred 
from  the  temple.  There  were  at  least  two  ascetic 
orders,  the  Nazarites  and  Essenes — of  whom  the 
first  were  as  old  as  the  time  of  the  prophets — men 
dedicate  to  God  from  birth  and  sometimes  before 
it,  drinking  no  wine,  celibate,  cutting  neither  the 
hair  nor  the  beard.  They  walked  apart  and  sought 
out  God  in  their  own  hearts. 

The  Essenes  lived  in  communities,  repudiated 
marriage  for  themselves,  but  adopted  children, 
prayed  before  and  after  meals,  wore  white,  and  had 
a  sense  of  caste  which  made  the  touch  of  lower 
orders  a  defilement.  They  made  no  sacrifice  except 
of  their  desires,  devoted  themselves  to  good  works 
and  practised  healing.  They  had  community  houses 
in  all  the  large  cities.  It  is  not  unlikely  that  as  a 
lad  the  carpenter's  son  had  gone  to  school  to 
them,  a  kind  of  friar's  school  where  one  learned 
to  read  the  scriptures  and  be  truthful,  chaste,  and 
obedient. 

Though  they  served  to  color  the  religious  thought 
of  the  time,  in  numbers  both  Nazarites  and  Essenes 
were  inconsiderable.  The  great  body  of  the  Jews 
were  either  Pharisees  or  Sadducees.  These  last 
were  mainly  of  aristocratic  and  priestly  families. 

45 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


They  held  a  practical  monopoly  of  the  Sanhedrin 
and  the  priestly  offices,  repudiating  life  after  death, 
disbelieving  God  as  far  as  anybody  of  that  time 
dared  disbelieve  Him.  Opportunists,  bent  upon 
maintaining  their  own  rights  and  privileges,  they 
were  sensitive  to  popular  disorder  lest  it  give  the 
Romans  an  excuse  for  removing  them. 

Against  these  were  the  Pharisees,  the  aristocracy 
of  moral  assumption.  So  successful  had  they  been 
in  putting  over  on  the  masses  the  conviction  of 
their  superior  virtue  that  as  patterns  they  had 
largely  superseded  the  priesthood;  in  company  with 
the  Scribes,  those  scholarly  and  pedantic  searchers 
of  the  scriptures,  they  set,  as  it  were,  the  fashions 
in  moral  behavior.  Their  fields  of  action  were  chief- 
ly the  Rabbinical  schools,  where  they  taught  that 
there  is  an  immortal  vigor  in  man  which  can  be 
nourished  to  rewards  or  punishments  in  the  life  be- 
yond this.  Over-nice  in  their  liturgical  observances, 
they  were  nevertheless  the  conservers  of  what  was 
left  of  the  ancient  Jewish  integrity. 

In  addition  to  these,  in  Galilee  there  were  two  fire- 
new  vessels  of  social  discontent :  the  following  of  the 
Baptist,  among  whom  we  reckon  the  man  from  Naz- 
areth, and  the  adherents  of  Judas,  called  the  Zelot, 
a  considerable  band  who  went  mad  with  the  abuse 
of  authority  under  Gessius  Florius,  the  procurator, 
who  were  reported  not  to  value  death  nor  any  kind 

46 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


of  dying  so  long  as  they  might  call  no  man  lord. 
They  "had  an  inviolable  attachment  to  liberty," 
and  for  the  rest  they  agreed  with  the  moral  teach- 
ings of  the  Pharisees. 

Over  all  was  the  hand  of  Rome,  penetrating  even 
into  the  dreams  of  men,  so  that  they  could  not  so 
much  as  imagine  Heaven  except  in  the  terms  of 
kingdoms  and  authority. 

Into  all  this  welter  of  formalism  and  self-seeking, 
formalism  and  piety,  into  attempted  Hellenic  culture 
and  hole-in-the-corner  asceticism  the  man  from  Naza- 
reth poured  out  his  message,  to  meet  and  contend  with 
it,  and  be  set  back  in  its  course  like  a  stream  pouring 
into  the  sea,  finally  to  mix  with  it  so  that  never  any 
more  could  its  meaning  be  traced  clear  until  men 
should  cease  seeking  at  the  meeting  of  the  waters 
in  the  muddled  Word,  but  turn  back  to  the  immortal 
source  of  the  Spirit. 

It  is  a  mistake,  however,  to  think  of  Jesus  at  the 
outset  of  his  career  as  opposed  to  all  this;  he  was  an 
inextricable  part  of  it.  Himself  an  avowed  Baptist, 
there  is  some  reason  to  believe  that  he  held  himself 
Nazar,  vowed,  set  apart  for  God;  he  borrowed  freely 
from  the  practices  of  the  Essenes.  It  is  probable 
that  the  family  at  Nazareth  was  pharisaical  in  the 
best  sense,  leaning  a  little  to  the  too  scrupulous  ful- 
filment of  the  law  rather  than  to  a  neglect  of  it.  His 
brother  James,  at  least,  turned  out  a  great  pietist, 

47 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


and,  though  he  suffered  a  martyr's  death,  is  described 
as  wearing  callouses  on  his  knees  praying  in  the 
temple  for  the  spread  of  Christianity. 

At  least  one  of  the  disciples  was  a  Zelot,  and  prob- 
ably all  of  them  Baptists.  One  guesses  that  a  cer- 
tain aloofness  discernible  in  the  beginning  of  his 
ministry  was  actuated  by  the  desire  of  Jesus  to  free 
himself  from  all  these  tangled  and  entangling  lines 
of  influence. 

None  of  these,  however,  gave  him  so  personal  a 
difficulty  as  the  effort  to  prevent  his  teaching  from 
being  swamped  in  the  immediate  human  demand 
for  material  relief.  After  the  opening  of  his  ministry 
in  Capernaum  he  made  a  tour  of  the  neighboring 
cities,  preaching  in  the  synagogues  and  suffering 
similar  interruptions. 

A  leper,  to  whom  knowledge  of  the  new  prophet's 
healing  power  had  come,  followed  him  across  the 
fields,  protesting,  "If  thou  wilt  thou  canst  make  me 
clean."  It  was  not  an  extravagant  confidence. 
The  liturgical  detail  to  be  observed  by  a  leper  who 
has  been  cleansed  is  too  complete  not  to  warrant 
the  conclusion  that  mental  healing  of  leprosy  was 
possible,  even  frequent,  in  Palestine.  Although 
Jesus  avoided  healing,  it  is  not  of  record  that,  once 
the  afflicted  succeeded  in  gaining  his  attention,  he 
ever  refused  relief.  On  this  occasion  the  faith  of  the 
leper  and  the  compassion  of  the  prophet  were  equal; 

48 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


but  the  caution  to  tell  no  man  broke  down  before 
the  natural  flow  of  gratitude. 

As  the  healed  leper  returned  from  showing  him- 
self to  the  priest,  and  performing  those  things  for 
his  own  relief  and  the  protection  of  the  community 
as  prescribed  by  Moses,  the  news  burst  from  him. 
It  spread  through  all  the  countryside  and  forthwith 
the  preacher  was  engulfed  again  in  the  rising  tide 
of  human  anguish.  It  drove  him  out  from  the  cities 
to  the  hill  places  where  only  the  strong  could  come 
to  him.  Shepherds  heard  him  as  they  went  with 
their  flocks  white  from  the  spring  shearing  to  feed 
on  the  plains  of  Esdraelon,  wood-cutters  going  up 
toward  Hermon,  and  a  continual  trickle  from  the 
towns,  for,  says  the  recorder,  "all  men  were  in  ex- 
pectation," straining  toward  the  last  struggle  for 
Jewish  autonomy.  He  visited  Nazareth,  preaching 
the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord,  and  discovered  that 
a  prophet  is  not  without  honor  save  in  his  own 
country,  for,  said  the  Nazarenes,  "Is  not  this  the 
carpenter?"  Luke  says  they  hustled  him,  but  I 
find  this  incompatible  with  his  ironic  tolerance.  The 
pinch  of  bitterness  was  yet  to  come. 

It  was  after  some  weeks  of  this,  when  he  returned 
to  Capernaum,  that  there  occurred  the  first  of  those 
encounters  with  established  order  which  led  on  to 
his  destruction  and  the  final  elevation  of  his  message 
above  the  accidents  of  flesh.  The  house  to  which 

49 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


he  had  come,  not  his  own,  but  possibly  Peter's,  was 
so  thronged  with  those  who  wished  to  hear  and  so 
besieged  from  the  narrow  street  without,  that  it 
was  impossible  for  late  comers  to  have  access  to  him. 
But  there  was  a  man  sick  of  the  palsy  whose  desire 
for  healing  was  equaled  by  his  faith  in  the  man 
from  Nazareth  to  accomplish  it.  If  they  could 
only  get  at  him!  By  this  times  Jesus'  avoidance 
of  publicity  must  have  become  a  matter  of  general 
knowledge,  for  the  sick  man's  friends  took  no  chance 
of  meeting  the  prophet  on  the  public  highway. 
They  ascended  by  way  of  one  of  the  flat,  shoulder- 
to-shoulder  houses,  and  from  the  roof  let  down  the 
bed  through  the  open,  middle  court  which  is  the 
distinctive  feature  of  Oriental  dwellings. 

Now  was  the  wished-for  moment  when  the  prophet, 
moved  by  their  faith  and  taking  compassion  on  the 
sick  of  the  palsy,  should  say,  "Take  up  thy  bed 
and  walk,"  but,  lying  there  with  all  eyes  upon  him, 
the  expectant  sufferer  heard  a  thing  even  more 
amazing.  Said  Jesus,  "Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee." 

It  is  possible  that  this  was  more  germane  to  the 
case  than  appears  from  the  meager  account  of  it; 
whether  or  no  this  palsy  was  one  of  those  nervous 
collapses  which  are  the  effect  of  excess,  and  had  its 
seat  deeper  in  the  man's  soul  than  in  his  quaking 
body,  cannot  now  be  more  than  suggested.  Whether 
the  remission  of  sin  was  addressed  to  the  sufferer 

60 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


or  beyond  him  to  the  waiting  audience,  it  did  strike 
across  and  reached  the  Scribes  that,  with  how  much 
of  honest  inquiry  who  can  guess,  had  turned  out  to 
hear  the  new  prophet.  A  Scribe  was  in  some  sort 
a  councilor  of  the  law  when  one  of  the  parties  to 
the  case  was  God  Almighty.  He  was  versed  in  all 
minutiae  of  the  scriptures  and  in  nice  interpretations. 
It  was  from  the  Scribes  that  the  Pharisees  derived 
authority  for  all  that  punctilious  observance  by 
the  exercise  of  which  they  assumed  the  virtues  that 
no  longer  sprang  spontaneously  from  their  barren 
breasts.  By  a  process  which  may  be  observed  going 
on  in  our  own  day  among  legal  interpreters,  the 
work  of  the  Scribes  had  narrowed  to  the  business  of 
ascertaining  just  how  far  a  man  may  push  the 
letter  of  the  law  in  his  favor  without  incurring  any 
of  its  penalties.  Now  as  they  heard  this  so  quietly 
uttered  and  so  extraordinary  statement,  there  ran 
a  whisper  from  one  to  another:  "Who  can  forgive 
sins  but  God —  Oh,  blasphemy!"  and  there  was  a 
great  wagging  of  turbans. 

"Think  you,"  said  the  man  from  Nazareth,  "it  is 
easier  to  say  thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee,  or  to  say,  arise, 
take  up  thy  bed  and  walk?" 

And  getting  no  answer  from  them,  he  continued, 
"That  you  may  know  that  the  son  of  man  has 
power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins,  I  say  unto  thee,  arise, 
take  up  thy  bed  and  go  thy  way  into  thine  house." 

51 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


As  the  sick  man  arose  and  went  forth  before  them 
all,  carrying  his  bed,  there  went  forth  with  him  the 
most  revolutionary  doctrine  which  had  yet  been 
pronounced  among  men.  The  son  of  man  has  power 
on  earth  to  forgive  sins.  For  observe  that  up  to  this 
time  Jesus  had  not  spoken  of  himself  as  the  Ap- 
pointed One,  nor  assumed  for  himself  any  character 
but  that  of  preacher  of  an  urgent  word.  There  is 
no  evidence  that  in  the  title,  Son  of  Man,  by  which 
he  referred  to  himself,  he  meant  to  express  anything 
but  the  merging  of  his  personality  in  his  social 
function;  to  speak  not  as  Jesus  of  Nazareth, but  as 
heir  of  all  the  ages,  a  fraction  of  that  close-woven 
human  fabric  of  which  he  at  all  times  warmly  felt 
himself  a  part.  Later  in  his  career  he  was  to  come 
back  to  this  point  and  reiterate  what  was  here  so 
lightly  indicated,  the  community  of  power,  equally 
accessible  to  himself  and  his  disciples — "Greater 
things  than  these  shall  ye  do" — a  power  which 
even  during  his  lifetime,  under  his  instruction,  they 
began  to  exercise.  "Man,"  he  said,  "hath  power. . . ." 

It  was  no  new  thing  for  one  man,  by  some  process 
not  yet  fully  understood,  to  reach  across  to  another 
and  so  stir  up  the  centers  of  his  being  as  to  set  back 
the  whole  course  of  nature  and  effect  a  profound 
reorganization  of  the  physical  forces.  That  such  a 
thing  can  be  done  is  a  common  and  ancient  piece 
of  human  knowledge.  But  from  times  older  than 

52 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


Israel  it  has  been  recognized  that  deep  personal 
disaster  can  be  traced  to  violations  of  laws  which 
lie  beyond  the  minor  infringements  of  bodily  illness 
and  are  amenable  only  to  the  forgiveness  of  offended 
deity.  There  is  always  the  chance  of  evading  the 
consequences  of  such  a  violation  by  persuading  the 
gods,  or  by  setting  them  one  against  another,  but  a 
small  chance  and  exceedingly  uncertain.  Pagan 
and  Hebrew  alike  brooded  under  a  sense  of  inesca- 
pable destiny. 

The  doctrine  that  plain  man  could  by  plain  man 
his  brother  be  released  from  spiritual  bondage  fell 
upon  soil  so  unprepared  that  twenty  centuries  of 
harrowing  have  produced  but  a  few  thin  sprouts 
from  it.  By  what  power  resident  in  man,  by  what 
paths  it  is  attained,  was  to  be  developed  as  a  later 
part  of  his  teaching.  The  disciples  of  Jesus  per- 
ceived it  only  as  a  cloud  on  the  eastern  horizon. 
There  was  the  thing  before  them  in  its  concrete 
example  of  the  man  with  the  palsy,  but  the  prin- 
ciple in  its  utter  simplicity  escaped  them  as  the 
perfect  pearl  eludes  the  hand  by  its  roundness. 

It  is  impossible,  however,  to  twist  out  of  this  in- 
cident any  other  meaning  than  that  such  release 
should  pass  from  man  to  man.  At  that  time  Jesus 
gave  no  evidence  of  thinking  of  himself  as  other  than 
his  companions  except  in  the  authority  and  single- 
ness of  his  calling;  all  that  he  professed  was  the  com- 

53 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


plete  interpenetration  of  what  we  have  agreed  to 
call  matter  and  spirit.  It  was  a  simpler  and  more 
direct  form  of  what  society  begins  to  practise  fum- 
blingly,  like  a  novice  with  a  new  instrument, — the 
freeing  of  man  by  man:  the  criminal  from  the  com- 
pulsion of  his  criminal  nature,  the  obsessed  from 
his  evil  obsession,  the  incompetent  from  his  incom- 
petency,  and,  Heaven  save  the  mark!  the  poor  from 
his  poverty.  About  the  much  more  advanced  move- 
ment to  free  man  from  the  violation  of  his  physical 
nature  by  means  of  the  spirit  that  is  in  him,  I  say 
nothing.  It  is  among  us  in  a  form  to  admit  of  per- 
sonal investigation  on  every  side.  We  are  tolerant 
of  it  as  in  their  day  were  the  Scribes  and  the  Phari- 
sees, and  tolerant  for  the  same  reason;  we  know  that 
it  has  been  done,  but  we  are  unfamiliar  with  and 
suspicious  of  the  instrument.  It  is  reported  by  one 
John  Mark,  who  is  described  as  having  written  down 
all  that  he  could  remember  of  what  Peter  told  him 
of  this  occasion,  that  the  launching  of  this  revolu- 
tionary truth  was  accompanied  with  nothing  more 
than  a  general  amazed  comment  on  the  part  of  the 
Capernaumites  that  never  in  their  lives  had  they 
seen  things  done  in  this  fashion. 

§ 

By  this  time,  which  could  not  have  been  more 
than  six  months  after  his  baptism,  Jesus  appears  to 

have  broadened  the  scope  of  preparation  for  the 

54 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


kingdom  without  having  lost  his  sense  of  its  im- 
manence. On  the  way  to  his  own  house  after  the 
incident  of  the  man  sick  of  the  palsy,  he  passed  the 
office  of  the  local  tax-collector;  one  of  those  minor 
officials  to  whom  the  Roman  imposition  was  farmed 
out  after  a  fashion  which  rendered  Rome  so  ob- 
noxious to  conquered  nations.  It  was  an  office 
hated  not  only  for  what  it  was,  but  for  what  it  stood 
for  in  the  community;  the  constant  menace  of  life 
and  liberty  in  an  age  when  death,  mutilation,  and 
the  selling  of  whole  families  into  slavery  were  ad- 
judged not  too  severe  punishments  for  delinquents. 
This  Matthew,  who  from  the  description  of  him  as 
"sitting  at  the  receipt  of  customs"  may  have  been 
a  collector  of  imposts  between  Galilee  and  Perea 
which  lay  along  the  eastern  shore  of  the  lake,  had 
not  yet  been  corrupted  by  his  office,  for  the  next 
we  hear  of  him  he  is  sitting  at  supper  with  Jesus 
and  others  of  his  following. 

It  was  the  custom  in  Oriental  countries,  in  the 
absence  of  universities  and  public  forums,  for  learned 
men  to  gather  about  them  groups  of  disciples,  sit- 
ting for  disquisition  on  the  housetops  or  at  meat 
in  the  still,  cool  upper  chambers.  This  was  the 
practice  of  rabbis  in  Israel,  only  in  Israel  there  was 
nothing  recognized  as  learning  which  did  not  con- 
cern itself  with  God  and  human  conduct.  Gather- 
ings of  this  sort  at  the  house  of  Jesus  in  Capernaum 

55 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


must  have  been  of  another  sort  than  the  slow,  or- 
dered discussions  of  Hillel  and  Shamai  at  Jeru- 
salem, meetings  full  of  hope  and  high-keyed  ex- 
pectation, looking  toward  the  kingdom. 

Simon  the  Zelot  would  be  there,  the  impetuous 
Peter,  and  the  two  sons  of  Zebedee,  nicknamed  the 
Sons  of  Thunder,  those  impatient  souls  who  would 
have  called  down  fire  from  heaven  on  the  villages 
which  would  not  receive  the  prophet  on  his  journey 
up  to  Jerusalem.  There  were  also  in  that  company 
Matthew  the  publican,  whose  business  so  discredited 
him  with  society  that  his  evidence  would  not  be 
taken  in  court,  and  other  doubtful  characters;  sitting 
in  the  head  of  the  board,  the  carpenter,  witty,  genial, 
sanguine,  seeing  Heaven  in  their  midst  and  the  great 
day  so  close  at  hand  that  they  would  scarcely  have 
gone  through  the  cities  of  Israel  before  it  should  be 
upon  them.  Whatever  it  was  that  went  on  in  the 
house  of  Jesus,  it  was  exciting  enough  or  important 
enough  for  all  Capernaum  to  be  set  gossiping 
over  it. 

"How  is  it,"  carped  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees, 
"that  this  man  sits  eating  and  drinking  with  low 
fellows,  publicans  and  sinners?"  One  suspects  that 
the  Pharisees  had  rather  take  up  the  new  preacher 
in  the  beginning — for  a  prophet  might  arise — and 
it  was  more  than  their  sense  of  prophetic  propriety 
which  was  slighted.  But  Jesus  when  he  heard  of  it 

5G 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


sent  them  word  that  he  had  come  not  to  call  the 
righteous,  but  sinners.  Said  he,  "They  that  are 
whole  need  not  a  physician;  but  they  that  are  sick," 
one  of  those  flashes  of  gentle  irony  so  characteristic 
of  him,  for  if  there  was  any  class  in  Israel  that  was 
sick  unto  death  with  formalism  it  was  the  Scribes 
and  Pharisees.  But  another  thing  troubled  them, 
and  in  this  there  was  no  doubt  a  measure  of  honest 
questioning.  "John  fasted,"  they  said,  "and  the 
Pharisees  fast,  but  why  not  thy  disciples?" 

There  must  be  a  special  dispensation  somewhere 
for  those  poor  souls  who  would  like  to  know  the 
truth,  if  only  they  could  recognize  it  in  an  unfamiliar 
garment.  Said  Jesus,  "Can  the  children  of  the 
bridechamber  fast,  while  the  bridegroom  is  with 
them?  ..."  Also  he  said  that  no  man  seweth  a 
piece  of  new  cloth  on  an  old  garment,  lest  the  new 
piece  tear  away  that  to  which  it  is  sewed  and  the 
rent  is  made  worse,  and  no  man  putteth  new  wine 
in  old  bottles,  lest  the  bottles  burst  and  the  wine  is 
spilled  and  the  bottles  marred.  It  was  in  this 
fashion  that  he  placed  the  definite  mark  of  modern- 
ism between  himself  and  the  Baptist.  Whether  or 
not  he  recognized  the  fullness  of  his  message  and 
its  revolutionary  character,  he  at  least  understood 
that  it  was  a  mistake  to  follow  John  in  attempting 
to  pour  it  into  the  old  Levitical  mold.  Jesus  came 
preaching  the  Kingdom  but  with  new  meanings 

57 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


and  new  manners.  His  vision  on  that  point  was 
perfectly  clear,  but  the  circumstance  was  too  much 
for  him.  With  his  new  cloth  the  ancient  fabric  of 
Hebraism  was  torn  asunder,  he  poured  his  new  wine 
into  as  many  new  bottles  as  could  be  found,  and  still 
the  bottles  burst. 


Extra  -  canonical  sayings  of  Jesus  from  early 
Christian  writings,  probably  genuine,  or 
founded  on  true  sayings. 

In  whatsoever  things  I  discover  you,  in  these  will 
I  also  iudge  you. — Justin  Martyr. 

Ash  the  great  things  and  the  small  shall  he  added 
unto  you ;  ash  the  heavenly  and  the  earthly  shall  he 
added  unto  you. — Clement  of  Alexander. 

On  account  of  them  that  are  infirm  I  was  in- 
firm, and  on  account  of  them  that  hunger  did  I 
hunger,  and  on  account  of  them  that  thirst  did  I 
thirst. — Origen. 

On  the  same  day  he  beheld  one  working  on  the 
Sabbath  and  said  unto  him*  O  man,  if  thou  hnowest 
what  thou  art  doing,  olessed  art  thou;  out  if  thou 
hnowest  not,  thou  art  accursed  and  a  transgressor 
of  the  law. — Codex  IBezoe. 


IV 

WE  shall  have  to  go  back  to  this  remedial  use 
of  the  Spirit  as  between  man  and  man,  called 
forgiveness  of  sins,  but  we  must  have  more  to  go 
upon.  From  the  time  that  Jesus  came  under  the 
influence  of  John  to  his  declaration  of  a  superior 
freedom  of  personal  conduct,  the  sequence  of  events 
is  clear,  but  the  preaching  is  lost  to  us.  That  so  little 
is  recalled  as  being  definitely  placed  in  this  period 
would  imply  that  his  audiences  were  small  and  his 
converts  few  in  number.  But  at  Capernaum  he  was 
again  the  object  of  public  attention.  He  met  here 
with  that  most  coveted  distinction  of  the  revolu- 
tionist, opposition  from  the  established  order. 

Both  opposition  and  interest  centered  about  these 
two  points:  his  neglect  of  Levitical  formalities  and 
his  work  as  a  healer.  It  was  not  that  he  failed  to 
appreciate  the  value  of  ceremonial — there  is  a  cus- 
tom of  blessing  bread  before  breaking  it  which  is 
mentioned  often  enough  to  point  the  inference  that 
he  introduced  it,  and  we  find  him  paying  the  temple 
tax  and  keeping  the  great  festivals  of  Israel  with 
due  observance — but  he  went  through  the  fabric 

61 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


of  pharisaical  formality  like  a  lion  of  Judah  through 
a  net  set  to  catch  fieldfares.  It  was  only  when  he 
felt  it  close  to  the  lesser  personalities  of  his  disciples 
that  he  stooped  to  justification.  That  was  how  we 
find  him  about  the  first  of  June  of  the  year  that 
began  his  ministry,  walking  with  his  disciples  of  a 
Sabbath  morning,  probably  between  village  and  vil- 
lage, that  he  might  preach  at  the  morning  and  eve- 
ning services,  and  passing  on  their  way  the  fields  of 
standing  corn  now  whitening  for  the  harvest.  Per- 
haps the  time  was  all  too  short  for  the  customary 
midday  meal,  or  the  zeal  of  the  preacher  sometimes 
outran  the  nature  of  the  apostles,  for  they,  being 
ahungered,  broke  off  and  threshed  out  between  thumb 
and  palm  the  wheaten  ears  and  ate  them. 

Now  a  man  might  not  be  condemned  under  the 
law  for  failing  to  fast,  but  threshing  grain  on  the 
Sabbath  .  .  .  here  at  last  they  had  him !  Here  again 
Jesus  defined  for  his  accusers  those  principles  of 
spiritual  efficiency  which  determined  all  his  con- 
duct. "The  Sabbath,"  said  he,  "was  made  for 
man,  not  man  for  the  Sabbath."  He  also  answered 
them  a  little  more  in  their  own  key  with  a  scriptural 
reference  to  what  David  did  in  the  matter  of  the 
shewbread  in  the  temple.  It  is  doubtful,  however, 
if  the  exposition  cleared  the  subject  levitically  any 
more  than  it  confused  humanly  with  this  easy  com- 
parison of  kings  and  carpenters. 

62 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


Silenced  they  were,  but  not  answered,  for  we  read 
that  a  little  later,  possibly  on  the  same  Sabbath  or 
the  next  one,  he  was  teaching  in  the  synagogue,  and 
a  man  with  a  withered  hand,  posted  there  for  that 
purpose,  asked  of  him  a  healing.  Fully  aware  of  an 
intention  to  trap  him  into  Sabbath-breaking,  for 
which  in  any  notable  degree  he  might  be  brought 
before  the  authorities,  Jesus  turned  them  face  to  face 
again  with  the  spirit  of  that  law  by  the  letter  of 
which  they  hoped  to  snare  him.  "What  man  of 
you  that  have  a  sheep  fall  into  a  pit  on  the  Sabbath 
will  he  not  lay  hold  to  lift  it  out?  .  .  .  and  is  not 
man  more  than  a  sheep?"  There  was  more  from 
the  same  source,  but  the  Pharisees  looked  down 
their  noses,  unable  to  refute  the  argument  and  un- 
willing to  admit  it.  It  is  the  first  time  of  record 
that  Jesus  showed  himself  indignant  with  his  au- 
dience; reaching  out  his  hand  to  the  stricken  man, 
he  lifted  him  from  the  pit  of  his  own  affliction. 

We  who  are  the  inheritors  of  generations  of  prej- 
udice against  the  class  who  opposed  Jesus,  need  to 
remind  ourselves  that  there  is  somewhat  to  be  said 
in  extenuation.  The  Pharisees  were  a  people  doing 
the  best  they  knew  to  fulfil  what  they  recognized 
as  the  supreme  obligation — the  will  of  Jehovah. 
Much  that  they  did  was  done  in  anticipation  of  that 
closer  union  of  God  and  Israel  which  was  to  be  af- 
fected in  the  person  of  the  Messiah.  They  served 

63 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


God  as  much  as  they  were  able  and  expected  God 
to  honor  the  alliance.  Now  here  was  this  man  of 
the  common  people,  putting  all  their  strained  con- 
formities to  shame,  and  yet  distinguished  by  God 
with  the  isignia  of  a  true  prophet.  Not  that  they 
cared  what  the  carpenter  could  do,  but  if  this  man 
were  truly  a  prophet  or,  as  began  to  be  whispered, 
the  Messiah,  then  had  God  passed  them  over.  How 
the  slight  must  have  rankled!  Would  they  believe 
it  of  God  after  all  their  meticulous  service?  Not 
they !  Some  other  explanation  must  be  found  of  the 
extraordinary  phenomenon,  and  one  was  not  long  in 
forthcoming. 

Shortly  after  the  healing  of  the  withered  hand 
on  the  Sabbath,  and  possibly  to  escape  the  contro- 
versy stirred  up  by  it,  Jesus  set  sail  upon  Gennesaret 
for  the  opposite  leopard-colored  shore  of  Gadara. 
Here  the  hills  broke  off  abruptly,  full  of  caves,  with 
little  ledges  of  limestone  running  into  the  lake  and 
little  spits  of  sand  breaking  the  shore.  Swineherds 
fed  their  despised  charges  hereabouts;  the  caves 
were  inhabited  by  lepers  and  the  insane.  What 
occurred  there  has  come  to  us  so  mixed  with  popular 
superstition  of  the  time  that  it  is  impossible  to 
thresh  out  from  it  the  modicum  of  fact,  and  perhaps 
not  important.  It  was  what  people  thought  had 
happened  that  affected  their  attitude  toward  the 
teacher.  It  seems,  however,  that  the  man  from 

64 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


Nazareth  was  immediately  recognized  and  appealed 
to  by  one  of  the  most  unfortunate  of  that  unfriended 
class,  the  demoniacs.  It  was  so  that  all  manner  of 
mental  and  nervous  derangements  were  described, 
as  possession  by  evil  spirits,  a  belief  that  Jesus  seems 
to  have  shared.  One  such  very  pitiful  case  was 
healed  here  on  the  Gadarean  shore  under  circum- 
stances that  excited  the  utmost  superstitious  awe 
of  him,  so  much  so  that  deputations  came  out  from 
the  cities  round  about  and  entreated  him  to  depart 
out  of  their  coasts. 

It  was  this  incident  and  some  others  like  it  which 
gave  rise  to  the  charge  which  was  presently  brought 
against  him,  that  he  cast  out  demons  by  the  help 
of  the  very  Powers  of  Darkness.  The  logic  of 
Jesus  that  a  devil  casting  out  devils  would  be  a 
house  divided  against  itself,  served  not  only  to 
silence  opposition  for  the  moment,  but  to  augment 
the  popular  favor.  All  Galilee  was  aflame.  Samaria 
heard  of  him.  He  seems  almost  to  have  been  con- 
strained to  accepting  the  significance  of  his  healing 
at  the  common  estimate,  without,  however,  losing 
his  remarkable  poise  and  sanity. 

The  daughter  of  a  centurion  fell  sick — at  Caper- 
naum, no  doubt,  where  a  garrison  was  stationed — 
and  the  Roman,  backed  by  the  good  word  of  his 
Hebrew  neighbors,  dared  appeal  to  Jesus.  By  the 
time,  however,  that  the  prophet  had  reached  the 

65 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


house  the  child's  condition  was  such  that  the  rumor 
of  her  death  touched  with  hysteria  the  ill-balanced 
Oriental  household.  To  an  impostor  such  an  op- 
portunity would  have  been  irresistible.  Dead  cer- 
tainly; and  now  behold  a  miracle!  But  the  man 
from  Nazareth,  quietly  reassuring,  passed  through 
the  crowds  of  excited  domestics  to  the  inner  cham- 
ber. "She  is  not  dead,"  said  he,  "but  sleeping." 
Having  taken  her  by  the  hand  and  roused  her,  he 
bade  them  in  a  perfectly  common-sense  manner  give 
her  something  to  eat  and  say  no  more  about  it.  Out 
of  this,  which  could  not  be  kept  entirely  private,  the 
common  tongue  multiplied  wonders.  The  tide  of 
enthusiasm  rose  and  rolled  over  all  parts  of  Judea, 
even  as  far  as  Idumea.  It  reached  John  in  his  lone- 
ly prison;  it  rose  almost  to  his  own  head. 

Crowds  poured  into  Capernaum  from  the  sur- 
rounding country,  they  thronged  him  in  the  street 
if  they  might  so  much  as  touch  his  garment.  Wher- 
ever he  moved  the  sick  were  laid  out  along  his  path, 
happy  even  to  feel  his  shadow  in  passing.  The  tide 
of  popular  appreciation  rose  higher;  it  overflowed 
the  narrow  streets  of  the  lake  town  and  reached 
even  to  the  hills  of  Nazareth.  His  people  heard  of 
his  doings  and  came  down  to  take  him  home  with 
them.  Said  they,  "He  is  beside  himself."  In  noth- 
ing so  much  have  they  confirmed  the  family  status; 
it  was  so  exactly  like  what  would  be  expected  of  the 

66 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


leading  family  in  a  small  town  who  had  borne  on 
their  branches  the  greatest  radical  of  their  time.  It 
is  the  last  word  as  to  their  entire  respectability. 
But  Jesus  made  himself  inaccessible  in  the  midst 
of  his  disciples,  and  when  word  was  brought  to  him 
that  his  brethren  were  without,  seeking  for  him,  he 
answered  them,  saying,  "Who  is  my  mother  or  my 
brethren?"  And  looking  round  on  those  which  sat 
about  him,  he  said:  "Behold  my  mother  and  my 
brethren!  For  whosoever  shall  do  the  will  of  God 
the  same  is  my  brother  and  my  sister  and  my 
mother." 

It  must  have  been  about  this  time  that  John 
called  two  of  his  disciples  and  sent  to  him,  saying, 
"Art  thou  he  that  should  come,  or  look  we  for 
anotner?" 

Now  he  that  should  come  was  the  long-prophesied 
Messiah,  the  Anointed  One,  who  was  to  restore  the 
kingdom  to  Israel,  concerning  whose  advent  John 
had  borne  witness.  It  was  a  natural  and  inevitable 
question.  It  had  been  asked  of  John,  who  had  him- 
self been  under  no  illusion  as  to  the  nature  of  his 
own  calling.  It  was  probably  already  being  asked 
under  the  breath  by  believers  of  Jesus.  From  the 
answer  he  returned  to  the  Baptist's  inquiry,  it  seems 
likely  that  Jesus  might  have  asked  it  in  all  humility 
of  himself.  For  his  answer  when  it  came,  was  neither 
an  affirmation  nor  a  denial :  "  Go  your  way,"  he  said, 

67 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


"tell  John  what  things  ye  have  seen  and  heard, 
how  the  blind  see,  the  lame  walk,  the  lepers  are 
cleansed,  the  deaf  hear,  and  to  the  poor  the  gospel 
is  preached!" 

All  this  is  immensely  interesting  in  view  of  what 
Jesus  is  known  elsewhere  to  have  said  and  indicated 
as  to  the  relative  place  of  his  power  to  heal  in  his 
work  as  a  teacher.  From  the  beginning  he  seems 
to  have  regarded  it  as  incident  to  his  career  rather 
than  an  integral  part  of  it.  He  never  ascribed  it  to 
any  other  power  than  the  uninterrupted  working  of 
the  Father  in  him.  He  never  thought  of  it  as  a  gift 
peculiar  to  himself,  but  attainable  by  any  man 
who  let  himself  be  utterly  shone  through  by  the 
spirit  that  was  in  Jesus.  For  its  complete  operation 
he  recognized  the  necessity  of  some  sort  of  conjunc- 
tion between  the  healer  and  the  patient.  Ordinarily 
this  was  accomplished  by  establishing  belief  between 
them — the  desire  to  be  healed  accompanied  by  the 
firm  conviction  on  both  sides  that  healing  was  pos- 
sible. "Believest  thou?"  and,  "According  [to  thy 
faith  be  it  unto  thee,"  were  his  most  frequent  for- 
mulas; but  he  did  not  neglect  to  assist  the  faith  of 
the  applicant  by  material  means  when  necessary. 
It  is  related  of  the  first  leper  that  applied  to  him, 
that  Jesus  touched  him.  To  touch  a  leper  was  not 
only  a  Levitical  defilement,  but  a  practical  menace. 
It  was  because  of  this  liability  to  contagion  that 

68 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


they  were  required  to  go  about  crying,  "Unclean, 
unclean!"  in  an  isolation  more  terrible  than  death. 

Nothing  then  could  have  been  better  calculated 
to  raise  the  faith  of  the  unfortunate  than  that 
fearless  human  contact.  To  Jesus  the  leper  was 
clean;  and  almost  immediately  he  became  so  to 
himself. 

Later,  when  his  work  as  a  healer  appears  to  have 
been  overborne  by  his  message  and  the  unresponsive- 
ness  of  the  community,  he  used  symbolic  acts,  such 
as  touchings,  anointings  of  the  eyes,  to  create  that 
rapport  between  him  and  his  patient  which  was  so 
important  to  success.  Also  it  is  recorded  that  in 
more  than  one  town  he  did  no  mighty  work  because 
of  their  unbelief. 

Although  he  once  spoke  in  reference  to  a  stub- 
born case  of  possession,  of  the  aid  he  derived  from 
prayer  and  fasting — he  had  just  come  on  that  oc- 
casion from  a  long  session  of  spiritual  communion — 
he  seems  never  to  have  related  the  work  of  healing 
to  any  sort  of  goodness,  any  preferred  frame  of 
moral  behavior.  For  we  read  that  at  the  cleansing 
of  the  temple,  in  his  most  human  outburst  of  in- 
dignation, in  that  same  hour  they  brought  to  him 
lame  and  blind,  and  he  healed  them. 

It  is  also  indisputable  that  Jesus  taught  that 
healing  could  be  sought  by  one  for  another;  the 
faith  of  the  parent  for  the  child,  of  the  master  for 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


the  servant,  acted  as  the  solvent  of  disorder,  or,  if 
you  prefer  it,  as  the  conductor  of  the  divine  inunda- 
tion. Two  or  three  instances  of  this  sort  shall  be 
noted  in  their  proper  order;  we  have  here  to  do  with 
Jesus'  own  opinion  as  to  what  his  healing  powers 
witnessed.  He  offered  them  to  John  as  the  only 
available  evidence,  and  in  the  same  series,  that  the 
poor  had  the  gospel  preached  to  them.  Is  it  too 
much  to  conclude  that  in  offering  the  facts  of  his 
ministry  rather  than  its  message,  his  teaching  was 
as  yet  differentiated  from  John's  only  by  being  an 
extension  of  it?  In  a  beautiful  tribute  to  the  Baptist 
which  is  reported  to  us  by  Luke,  he  places  John  at  the 
forefront  of  the  tribe  of  prophets.  "Among  those 
born  of  women  . . .  not  a  greater. ..."  If  it  is  the  case 
that  John  was  the  first  to  teach  that  the  Kingdom 
of  God  is  affected  by  relations  between  man  and 
man,  rather  than  between  man  and  deity,  the  judg- 
ment of  time  would  seem  to  agree  with  him.  "But 
he  that  is  least  in  the  kingdom  of  God  is  greater 
than  he."  If  by  this  Jesus  meant  that  the  man  who 
realizes  in  his  daily  life  that  perfect  balance  between 
man  and  his  neighbor  which  is  the  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity, is  greater  than  he  who  merely  announces  it, 
here  too  history  is  in  accord.  John  appears  to  us 
as  a  man  who  rather  escaped  such  realization  by 
his  life  in  the  Wilderness;  but  his  disciple  Jesus 
accomplished  it. 

70 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


This  is  almost  the  last  we  shall  hear  of  the  Baptist, 
for  it  was  not  far  from  the  time  when  he  should 
lose  his  life  under  Herod,  the  King  himself  being  re- 
luctant, but  trapped  into  beheading  him  by  that 
Herodias  whom  John's  preaching  had  so  offended. 
It  was  fitting  that  this  tribute  should  come  from  his 
most  distinguished  convert,  and  one  reads  with 
satisfaction  that  it  was  received  with  enthusiasm  by 
the  disciples  of  Jesus,  many  of  whom  had  been 
baptized  with  John's  baptism.  And  for  the  Phari- 
sees and  lawyers  who  rejected  the  counsel  of  God 
against  themselves,  there  was  one  of  those  brilliant 
thrusts  which,  while  it  rendered  his  critics  silent, 
always  the  more  deeply  enraged  them.  Said  the 
Master : 

Whereunto  shall  I  liken  the  men  of  this  generation, 
And  to  what  are  they  like? 

They  are  like  unto  children  sitting  in  the  market 

place 

Calling  to  one  another  and  saying, 
We    have    piped    unto   you  and   ye  have    not 

danced; 
We  have  mourned  unto  you  and  ye  have  not 

wept, 

For  John  the  Baptist  came 
Neither  eating  bread  nor  drinking  wine, 
And  ye  say,  He  hath  a  devil; 

71 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


The  Son  of  man  is  come  eating  and  drinking, 
And  ye  say,  Behold  a  gluttonous  man,  a  wine- 
bibber, 
A  friend  of  Publicans  and  sinners. 

But  Wisdom  is  justified  of  all  her  children! 

§ 

Among  other  things  accomplished  during  the 
second  stay  in  Capernaum  was  the  raising  of  the 
number  of  his  personal  following  to  twelve  in  re- 
membrance of  the  twelve  houses  of  Israel.  Their  or- 
ganization was  of  the  simplest;  they  had  a  common 
purse  and  were  the  recipients  of  his  most  intimate 
teaching.  In  nothing  so  much  has  Jesus  shown  his 
humanness  to  be  of  the  same  stripe  as  that  of  all 
great  geniuses  as  in  this  selection;  for  of  the  twelve, 
one  betrayed  him  and  only  two  or  three  after  his 
death  showed  any  especial  aptitude  for  the  dissemina- 
tion of  his  doctrine. 

But  seeing  all  Israel  as  sheep  lacking  a  shepherd, 
he  seized  upon  what  seemed  the  likeliest  material, 
and  within  a  month  or  two  began  to  send  them 
forth  to  the  cities  of  Galilee. 

About  the  end  of  the  barley  harvest,  if  we  accept 
the  chronology  which  the  color  of  his  speech  allows, 
they  drew  out  of  the  plain  of  Gennesaret  to  one  of 
those  hollow  cone-shaped  hills  of  upper  Galilee, 
having  on  its  outer  rim  twin  towering  peaks  like 

72 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


the  frontlet  of  a  bull,  called  the  Horns  of  Hattin. 
It  is  reached  by  a  foot-path  up  through  the  Valley 
of  Doves,  between  thickets  of  oak  and  thorn  and 
oleander.  Here  the  twelve  came  for  their  parting 
instruction,  but  not  unmarked  by  that  crowd  of 
miserables  who  seem  to  have  hung  always  about  his 
path,  ready  to  pounce  upon  the  first  faint  hope  of 
healing.  Where  the  blind  and  the  halt  and  the  sick 
borne  in  litters  were  seen  moving  in  any  given  di- 
rection, there  the  crowd  came  hurrying.  They 
must  have  been  at  it  all  the  warm,  star-lighted  dusk, 
threading  the  dim  trails,  for  when  Jesus,  after  a 
night  spent  in  prayer  apart  on  one  of  the  peaks, 
came  down  into  the  amphitheater,  he  found  it  filled 
with  the  multitude.  Accounts  differ  as  to  what  he 
said  to  them,  but  all  agree  that  the  occasion  was 
notable  and  that  he  met  it  with  a  more  than  ordinary 
accession  of  preaching  power.  They  agree,  too,  in 
presenting  the  sermon  delivered  between  the  Horns 
of  Hattin  as  a  practical  direction  for  the  conduct  of 
life  rather  than  a  doctrinal  disquisition.  Something 
of  the  sort  the  setting  out  of  the  disciples  called  for: 
and  in  the  manner  of  coming  together  of  the  crowd 
there  was  evinced  a  demand  for  instruction  more  ex- 
plicit than  the  mere  announcement  of  the  kingdom. 
Time  and  place  had  combined  to  make  it  the  sin- 
cerest  and  best-selected  audience  that  had  yet  col- 
lected about  the  prophet. 

73 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


Whether  the  things  recorded  as  the  sermon  on 
the  mount  were  first  said  there,  or  elsewhere,  or 
whether,  as  seems  likely,  they  were  things  said  and 
repeated  on  various  occasions,  is  unimportant.  Some 
of  them  were  undoubtedly  framed  to  meet  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  twelve  on  their  preaching  tours;  but 
all  in  all  the  discourse  stands  as  the  most  consistent 
program  of  Christian  character  that  had  yet  been 
offered. 

It  seems  to  have  begun  with  a  rush  to  meet  the 
unvoiced  demand  that  was  made  upon  the  teacher 
by  their  simply  being  there  at  such  pains  and  in 
such  numbers,  anxious-hearted;  by  the  marks  upon 
them  of  the  conditions  under  which  life  was  lived 
in  Palestine,  the  personal  tyrannies,  the  grinding 
impositions. 

"Blessed  are  ye,  O  ye  poor,"  he  cried,  "for  yours 
is  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Blessed  are  ye  that  do 
hunger  and  thirst,  for  ye  shall  be  filled.  .  .  ."  And 
one  whose  need  was  bread  heard  it  as  a  promise  of 
material  relief,  and  whoso  thirsted  for  the  things  of 
the  spirit  heard  it  as  pertaining  to  the  Spirit.  To 
others  who  lacked  everything  it  came  as  the  prom- 
ise of  the  kingdom  which  was  to  come  only  Heaven 
knew  how,  but  very  shortly,  a  proletariat  Heaven  in 
which  the  poor  were  to  be  rich  and  the  rich  poor, 
and  everything  quite  and  completely  different. 
Taken  with  other  things  that  he  said  then  and  upon 

74 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


later  occasions,  I  can  make  nothing  more  or  less  of 
it  than  the  involuntary  expression  of  his  bright  be- 
lief in  the  abundance  of  God  lying  open  in  all  things 
to  whoever  would  reach  out  and  seize  them.  For 
he  said  again:  "Take  no  thought  what  ye  shall 
eat,  nor  yet  for  your  body  what  ye  shall  put  on  ... 
for  if  God  so  clothe  the  grass  of  the  field.  ...  O  ye 
of  little  faith!"  And  again:  "For  your  Heavenly 
Father  knoweth  you  have  need  of  these  things. 
Seek  ye  therefore  the  kingdom  of  God  and  all  these 
things  shall  be  added  unto  you." 

All  his  early  teaching  was  vibrant  with  this  joy- 
ous confidence  of  the  Spirit  to  compel  the  flow  of 
material  things — health,  food,  and  raiment.  He 
poured  it  out  here,  flashing  his  discourse  now  upon 
the  twelve  and  now  to  the  waiting  multitude,  and 
again  sweeping  them  all  into  the  compass  of  the 
hand  as  children  of  the  Father.  "Ye  are  the  light 
of  the  world,"  he  said.  "Let  your  light  so  shine 
among  men.  .  .  ." 

For  he  was  not  come  to  destroy  the  law,  but  to 
fulfil  it  in  terms  of  the  thoughts  and  affections  of 
men.  They  were  not  to  think  that  the  law  against 
murder  was  to  be  kept  by  the  mere  avoidance  of 
killing,  but  by  the  denial  of  hate  and  anger  and 
all  forms  of  enmity;  it  was  not  alone  in  inconti- 
nence of  the  flesh  that  unchastity  consisted,  but  in 
the  lusts  of  the  eye  and  the  imaginations  of  the 

6  75 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


heart.  This  was  sterner  doctrine  to  Israel  than  to 
us  after  a  score  of  centuries,  but  the  probe  went 
even  deeper.  It  struck  at  the  very  root  of  Hebrew 
morality,  that  austere  and  measured  system  of  re- 
prisal upon  which  their  civil  code  was  founded,  an 
eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth.  Vengeance 
is  mine  saith  the  Lord;  I  will  repay;  and  as  they  ex- 
pected God  to  deal  with  them  so  dealt  they  with 
their  fellows.  "But  I  say  unto  you,"  ran  the  new 
teaching,  "love  your  enemies,  do  good  to  them  that 
hate  you  and  pray  for  them  that  despitefully  use 
you." 

In  the  multiplicity  of  points  at  which  it  touched 
their  daily  life,  this  was  even  a  more  revolutionary 
doctrine  than  that  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  But 
perhaps  just  because  of  its  nearness  they  understood 
it  better.  This  can  be  gathered  from  the  readiness 
with  which,  after  his  death  had  sealed  it  to  them, 
the  early  Christians  practised  the  new  teaching; 
they  were  not  as  we  are,  put  at  fault  by  the  free 
imagery  in  which  it  was  stated. 

"Whosoever  will  smite  thee  on  thy  right  cheek 
turn  to  him  thy  left  also,"  said  Jesus,  "and  whoso- 
ever shall  compel  thee  to  go  a  mile  with  him,  go 
twain."  But  in  the  different  accounts  of  it  the  con- 
text of  this  saying  is  changed.  One  suspects  some 
crossing  here  of  general  principles  and  the  special 
direction  intended  for  the  disciples  who  were  about 

76 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


to  set  out  on  an  errand  in  which  it  was  important 
that  no  antagonism  should  be  aroused.  Jesus  him- 
self always  went  the  second  mile  with  his  adver- 
saries, and  at  the  end  of  it  defeated  them.  The 
whole  of  that  passage  beginning  "resist  not  evil," 
reads  more  like  the  best  example  of  that  spiritual 
astuteness  that  distinguished  him  than  a  declara- 
tion of  religious  principle.  Wise  as  serpents  and 
harmless  as  doves,  they  were  to  find  in  non-resistance 
the  subtlest,  completest  form  of  victory.  At  least 
the  passage  was  never  interpreted  by  the  men  who 
heard  it  as  a  doctrine  of  inaction.  Both  Jesus  and 
his  disciples  were  sharp  in  attack  on  existing  evils, 
fearless  in  denunciation,  not  devoid  of  just  wrath, 
and  active  in  proselyting. 

So  much  of  the  sermon  as  we  have  glanced  at  was 
constructive.  The  rest  of  it  was  mainly  taken  up 
with  precept  and  illustration  touching  the  peculiar 
weaknesses  of  the  time,  hypocrisy  and  formalism. 
Alms  were  to  be  given  in  secret,  not  to  be  seen  of 
men;  so  also  of  prayer,  which  he  enjoined  on  them. 
In  the  closet  with  shut  door  they  were  to  seek  the 
Father,  and,  seeking,  they  should  find;  knocking,  it 
should  be  opened  unto  them.  "For  if  ye,  being  evil, 
know  how  to  give  good  gifts  to  your  children,  how 
much  more  shall  your  Father  which  is  in  Heaven 
give  good  things  to  them  that  ask  him." 

These  were  the  sayings  of  Jesus  set  down  by 

77 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


Matthew  and  John  Mark  in  answer  to  the  first 
eager  cry  of  converts,  "What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved?" 
For  there  was  never  any  doubt  on  the  part  of  those 
who  listened  to  Jesus  and  his  disciples  that  partici- 
pation in  the  kingdom  was  dependent  upon  a 
changed  conduct,  "Except  your  righteousness  ex- 
ceed the  righteousness  of  the  Scribes  and  Phari- 
sees . . ."  and  again,  "Not  every  one  that  heareth,but 
he  that  doeth  the  will  of  my  Father."  That  is  why, 
perhaps,  we  have  in  the  gospels  so  much  of  specific 
direction  and  less  than  we  would  gladly  hear  of  the 
spiritual  illumination  from  which  it  proceeds.  For 
it  is  impossible  not  to  realize  how  little  resemblance 
there  is  between  the  God  of  love  whom  Jesus  came 
preaching  and  the  Jehovah  of  the  Hebrew  scriptures, 
jealous,  capricious,  avenging,  Worshiped  with  bloody 
rites  at  Jerusalem,  with  scapegoat  and  sin-offering 
and  burnt-offering  of  bullocks  and  of  rams.  It  was 
not  in  either  of  the  great  Jewish  sects  that  he  found 
the  doctrine  of  man  in  God  and  God  in  man,  as  im- 
plied in  the  terms  of  kinship  used  by  Jesus.  Yet 
in  none  of  the  gospels  is  it  set  down  as  a  new  doctrine, 
nor  was  the  preacher  ever  called  to  account  for  it. 
Though  there  is  some  reason  to  believe  that  he  re- 
garded it  as  an  important  part  of  his  mission  to 
make  known  the  true  nature  of  God,  Jesus  himself 
never  explained  when  or  by  what  means  he  had 
come  by  the  revelation.  It  was  one  of  those  truths 

78 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  the  deep  wells  of  human 
understanding,  so  native  to  its  element,  so  intrinsic 
that,  once  realized,  it  is  not  thought  of  as  requiring 
explication.  With  something  of  the  same  sim- 
plicity with  which  it  was  offered,  the  fatherliness  of 
God  was  accepted.  But  your  true  Oriental  is  al- 
ways a  mystic.  It  was  easier  for  him  to  realize 
that  "no  man  knoweth  the  Father  save  only  the 
son" — that  is  to  say,  that  only  by  the  God-in-man 
is  the  God-beyond-man  apprehended — than  it  was 
to  understand  how  the  kingdom  of  God  could  be 
set  up  in  Israel  without  the  physical  overthrow  of 
the  Roman  Empire.  The  sermon  on  the  mount 
instructed  those  who  heard  it  in  the  sort  of  behavior 
which  at  the  same  time  fitted  for  the  approaching 
kingdom  of  heaven  and  provided  a  way  of  escape 
from  destruction,  but  in  respect  to  the  scope  and 
manner  of  that  kingdom  when  it  should  come,  it 
left  them  exactly  where  it  found  them. 


Give  not  that  which  is  holy  unto  dogs 
N.either  cast  your  pearls  before  swine, 

Lest  hafily  the  swine  trample  them  under  foot 
Ana  the  dogs  turn  and  rend  you. 

—Matt,    vii,  6. 

2?y  their  fruits  ye  shall  hnow  them. 
Do  men  gather  graces  of  thorns? 
Or  figs  of  thistles? 

Even  so  every  good  tree  hringeth  forth  good  fruit 
But  the  corrupt  tree  oringeth  forth  evil  fruit: 
A  good  tree  can  not  hring  forth  evil  fruit, 
^.either  can  a  corrupt  tree  Iring  forth  good  fruit. 
Every  tree  that  hringeth  not  forth  good  fruit 
Is  hewn  down  and  cast  into  the  fire. 

Therefore  hy  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them. 

-vn,   16-20. 

Wo  servant  can  serve  two  masters: 
For  either  he  will  hate  the  one 
And  love  the  other; 
Or  else  he  will  hold  to  one 
And  despise  the  other. 

He  can  not  serve  God  and  .AdTammon. 

— Luke    xvi,    13. 

[Original  form  of  sayings  of  Jesus.     Arranged  by  Richard 
G.  Moulton.l 


OF  what  happened  to  the  twelve  on  their  tour, 
who  heard  and  who  reviled  them,  there  is  not 
so  much  as  a  tradition.  They  went  forth  to  do  as 
they  saw  Jesus  doing — to  teach,  to  heal,  and  to  cast 
out  devils;  at  no  point  was  the  business  of  the  dis- 
ciple distinguished  from  that  of  the  master.  It  was 
evident  from  the  instruction  they  received  that 
they  were  not  to  go  far  nor  to  remain  long;  they 
came  again  and  told  all  that  they  had  done. 

Of  what  happened  to  Jesus  in  the  interim  there  is 
even  less,  unless  we  place  in  this  period  some  in- 
cidents not  otherwise  located  except  by  the  logic 
of  circumstance.  Of  these  the  most  significant  was 
the  supper  at  the  house  of  a  Pharisee.  It  seems 
more  probable  that  after  his  return  from  the  moun- 
tain, rid  of  his  immediate  following,  men  of  no  very 
great  refinement  of  manner  if  the  truth  must  be 
told,  certain  of  the  Pharisees  who  had  been  at- 
tracted by  his  doctrine  but  repelled  by  his  want  of 
conformity,  would  again  attempt  to  put  themselves 
in  sympathy  with  the  prophet. 

One  did  so  attempt  by  inviting  him  to  his  house 

83 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


for  a  meal;  and  while  it  was  in  progress,  possibly 
in  the  open  court,  for  it  was  now  full  summer,  the 
guests  reclining  in  the  Roman  manner — for  so  it 
was  the  custom  of  the  Jews  at  their  feasts  to  assume 
the  postures  of  free  men — there  came  a  woman  into 
the  room  and  stood  behind  the  Master.  She  stood 
there  weeping  in  the  dusk;  her  tears  fell  upon  his 
feet,  and  she  wiped  them  with  her  hair.  They  could 
see  her  in  the  flare  of  the  tall  lamps,  wiping  his  feet 
and  kissing  them,  and  presently  the  air  of  the  place 
began  to  be  filled  with  perfume,  delicate  and  costly. 
Then  the  Pharisee  said  in  his  heart,  for  he  knew  her, 
"If  this  man  were  a  prophet" — for  he  was  by  no 
means  sure — "he  would  know  what  manner  of 
woman  this  is,  for  she  is  a  sinner,"  but  though  it 
was  his  own  house,  he  dared  not  be  the  first  to  speak 
of  it. 

He  watched  for  some  movement  of  withdrawal  on 
the  part  of  his  guest  from  the  defiling  presence,  but 
instead  he  found  himself  addressed. 

"Simon,  I  have  somewhat  to  say  to  thee." 

"Say  on,  Master." 

Said  Jesus:  "There  was  a  certain  creditor  had 
two  debtors,  the  one  of  whom  owed  five  hundred 
pence,  the  other  fifty,  and  when  they  had  nothing 
to  pay,  he  frankly  forgave  them  both.  Tell  me 
therefore,  which  of  them  will  love  him  most." 

"I  suppose  he  to  whom  he  forgave  most."     Simon 

84 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


was  ready  enough  with  the  answer,  but  he  saw  not 
where  the  question  tended. 

In  the  beginning  he  had  omitted  those  attentions 
which  were  due  an  honored  guest,  fearing,  perhaps, 
to  commit  himself  too  much.  The  man  might  be  a 
prophet,  in  which  case  it  were  well  to  have  enter- 
tained him,  but  still—  And  now  his  guest  was 
pointing  out  to  him  that  it  was  the  woman  who  had 
supplied  the  missing  hospitality,  the  ceremonial 
washing,  the  kiss  of  welcome,  the  anointing. 

"Wherefore,"  said  the  Master,  "her  sins  are  for- 
given, for  she  hath  loved  much;  but  he  to  whom 
little  is  forgiven,  the  same  loveth  little."  And  to 
the  woman  he  said:  "Go  in  peace;  thy  sins  be  for- 
given thee."  This  was  the  way  he  took  to  turn 
even  the  slights  of  his  adversaries  to  advantage  in 
the  spread  of  his  doctrine.  It  was  also  one  of  the 
things  that  was  remembered  against  him. 

How  else  he  spent  the  time  of  his  disciples'  ab- 
sence cannot  be  so  much  as  guessed,  unless  he  spent 
a  part  of  it  in  his  mother's  house  at  Nazareth.  The 
last  we  hear  of  his  family  was  on  the  occasion  of 
their  visit  to  him  at  Capernaum,  when,  if  he  received 
them  at  all,  it  was  not  until  after  they  had  been 
made  to  feel  that  their  claim  upon  him  was  less  than 
that  of  more  ardent  believers.  And  the  next  we 
hear  is  that  Mary  his  mother,  and  possibly  a  brother, 
are  in  the  group  that  followed  him  up  to  Jerusalem. 

85 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


James  was  martyred  for  his  sake,  and  the  grandsons 
of  Jude  confessed  him  as  Christ  before  the  Emperor 
Domitian. 

There  must  have  intervened  between  these,  some 
occasion  on  which  his  family  had  leisure  to  hear  and 
be  converted  by  him,  and  this  is  the  only  unac- 
counted-for interval  of  his  ministry. 

It  would  probably  have  been  during  this  period 
of  retirement  that  the  news  reached  him  of  how  the 
daughter  of  Herodias  had  danced  the  head  of  John 
the  Baptist  off  his  shoulders  and  on  to  a  silver 
charger,  otherwise  there  would  have  been  some 
public  question  raised  by  it.  And  if  he  were  not 
where  I  suppose  him,  then  he  was  more  than  likely 
where  we  read  that  he  was  often  to  be  found,  apart 
in  the  hills  and  desert  places  at  prayer. 

It  is  not  because  the  soul  of  man  is  less  importu- 
nate, but  only  because  it  is  immensely  more  fluent 
than  the  physical  habit,  that  his  religious  practices 
take  their  cast  from  his  daily  living.  Ordinarily  the 
spirit  accommodates  itself  to  trifles  of  custom  and 
expedient  as  a  stream  to  the  pebbles  in  its  bed,  flowing 
over  and  around  them;  it  is  only  in  freshets  that 
they  are  carried  utterly  away.  The  essential  teach- 
ings of  the  man  Joshua  Ben  Joseph  cut  a  wide, 
free  channel  for  the  spiritual  aspirations  of  the 
time,  but  his  private  religious  observances  were 
largely  shaped  by  contemporaneous  Hebrew  usage. 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


The  pagan  carried  his  gods  with  him.  Every 
place  in  which  he  elected  to  set  up  his  altars  became 
sacred,  fit  for  worship  or  expiation;  but  to  the  Jew 
there  was  but  one  holy  place,  even  the  mount  of 
Jerusalem.  Only  between  the  horns  of  the  great 
altar  could  sacrifice  be  acceptably  made.  But  ever 
since  the  Captivity  of  Babylon  there  had  been,  in 
whatever  place  Jews  of  the  dispersion  were  congre- 
gated, meeting-houses  where  the  books  of  the  law 
were  kept  and  matters  pertaining  to  their  religion 
could  be  discussed.  These  synagogues  in  the  time 
of  Jesus,  when  the  temple  worship  was  still  the 
dominant  feature  of  Hebraism,  had  even  less  of 
sanctity  than  attaches  to  them  since  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem;  they  were  used  only  on  Sabbaths  and 
commemorative  occasions.  All  the  treasures  of  re- 
ligious association  were  still  with  the  grass  and  the 
rain,  the  wild  hills  and  the  swelling  of  Jordan. 
Wealthy  Jews  had  closets  for  personal  devotions, 
rooms  dedicated  to  reading  and  meditation,  little 
kiosks  on  the  housetops,  looking  toward  Jerusalem; 
but  in  the  crowded  warrens  of  the  poor  there  were 
no  such  privacies.  Any  man  among  them  subject 
to  visitation  of  the  Spirit  must  have  turned  instinct- 
ively toward  those  places  where  of  old  God  had 
visited  Abraham,  Elijah,  and  Isaiah.  It  is  impossible 
not  to  conclude  that  to  the  circumstances  of  great 
light  and  space  in  which  he  received  it,  quite  as 

87 


THE   MAN   JESUS 


much  as  to  the  compulsory  co-operations  and  inter- 
dependence of  poverty  from  which  he  came,  we 
owe  the  spacious  social  character  of  the  teaching 
of  Jesus. 

Above  the  plain  of  Gennesaret  lie  the  orchards; 
first  the  olives  with  the  vines  between;  above  the 
olives  the  figs;  above  the  figs  the  apricots,  almonds, 
walnuts.  Beyond  the  orchards  the  wild  jungle 
begins  —  oak  and  thorn  and  terebinth;  at  last 
the  "trees  of  God,"  spired  fir  and  fan-spread 
cedar. 

Here  the  charcoal-burner's  hut  would  have  shel- 
tered him,  or  one  of  those  low  stone  sheds  used  by 
the  shepherds  at  lambing-time.  At  this  latitude  the 
sky  retains  its  blueness  on  until  midnight,  the  stars 
are  not  pricked  in  on  one  plane,  but  draw  the  eye 
to  the  barred  door  of  space.  A  man  praying  here 
all  night  on  one  of  these  open  hill-fronts  might  think 
he  heard  them  swinging  to  their  stations,  might  hear 
without  any  fancying  the  heavy  surge  of  the  Medi- 
terranean roll  up  along  the  western  buttress  of  the 
Bridge.  At  dawn  the  fishing  fleet  would  break  out 
of  the  lake  towns  like  doves  out  of  a  dove-cote,  and 
caravans,  starting  early  to  avoid  the  heat  of  the 
day,  begin  to  crawl  along  the  Wadi  el  Haman. 
Hours  such  as  this  God  flowed  into  him,  filled  and 
overfilled  him. 

And  with  all  his  being  so  filled  and  foaming  with 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


the  new  wine  of  his  gospel,  he  retained  the  shape 
he  had  from  the  potter. 

He  was  a  small-town  man  and  no  world-builder. 
He  preached  the  Kingdom  of  God,  knowing  God  for 
a  spirit  and  having  an  increasing  realization  of  the 
kingdom  as  a  state  of  being.  But  he  had  no  pro- 
gram. He  followed  the  inward  voice,  and  followed 
it  instinctively  with  the  freedom  of  a  river  in  its 
natural  channel,  with  no  fretting  of  the  flesh.  But 
where  the  voice  left  him  uninformed  he  was  simply 
a  man  from  Nazareth;  his  social  outlook  was  the 
outlook  of  a  villager. 

All  the  great  prophets  of  Israel  had  come  out  of 
the  Wilderness;  their  words  were  full  of  the  terrible 
things — thunders,  earthquakes,  fire  on  the  moun- 
tains. But  the  words  of  Jesus  are  all  of  the  small 
town:  the  candle  and  the  bushel,  the  housewife's 
measure  of  yeast,  the  children  playing  in  the  street. 
The  rich  he  knew  only  as  the  poor  and  the  oppressed 
know  them;  the  kings  of  his  parables  were  the  kings 
of  fairy-tale  and  legend,  such  kings  and  potentates 
as  make  the  stock  of  the  village  story-teller.  His 
very  way  of  speaking  was  a  folk  way,  the  pithy 
sentence,  the  pregnant  figure.  He  saw  God  reflected 
in  every  surface  of  the  common  life  and  taught  in 
parables  which  are,  after  all,  but  a  perfected  form  of 
the  quizzes  and  riddles  dear  to  the  unlettered  wit. 
That  is  why  so  many  of  them  are  remembered  while 

89 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


his  profounder  sayings  escaped  his  hearers.  It  is 
evident  from  the  form  of  these,  blunted  as  they  are 
by  retranslation,  that  they  were,  many  of  them,  cast 
in  the  matched  and  balanced  sentences  of  Hebrew 
verse,  which  accounts  in  part  for  their  easy  retention. 
He  was  a  man  wise  in  life,  but  unlearned.  He 
read  no  books  but  the  scriptures;  wrote  nothing,  took 
the  folk  way  of  transmitting  his  teaching  from  mouth 
to  mouth  and  trusted  God  for  the  increase;  and  he 
had  the  folk  way  in  his  profoundest  speech,  of 
identifying  himself  with  the  Power  that  used  him. 
He  dramatized  all  his  relations  to  the  Invisible. 
With  it  all  he  was  a  Jew  of  the  circumcision.  He 
grew  up  beyond  Judaism  as  a  stalk  of  grain  grows 
from  its  sheath,  but  never  out  of  it.  Always  to  his 
death,  it  was  there  about  the  roots  of  his  life.  At 
Capernaum,  when  the  centurion  had  come  to  him, 
touching  the  illness  of  his  servant,  it  had  been 
thought  necessary  to  explain  that  the  soldier  had 
been  good  to  the  Jews  and  had  built  them  a  syna- 
gogue. In  the  sending  of  his  disciples  he  had  ex- 
plicitly directed  them  not  to  go  into  Samaria.  His 
final  illumination  on  this  point  he  took  with  that 
extraordinary  spiritual  efficiency  which  distinguished 
him;  equally  with  John  the  Baptist  he  understood 
that  many  should  come  in  from  strange  lands  and 
sit  down  with  the  children  of  Abraham  and  Isaac 
and  Jacob.  But  the  stalk  had  not  yet  overtopped 

90 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


its  sheath  when  the  returning  twelve  met  him  at  the 
appointed  rendezvous,  which  was  probably  Caper- 
naum. 

From  what  follows,  one  judges  that  the  teaching 
of  the  disciples  must  have  been  attended  with  a 
measure  of  success.  From  this  time  on  until  he  de- 
liberately disappointed  it,  public  expectation  ran 
high.  What  with  the  coming  and  going,  Jesus  and 
the  twelve  were  so  beset  that  they  found  it  neces- 
sary to  withdraw  some  little  distance  out  of  the  city 
along  the  lake  shore,  but  the  people  marked  where 
they  went  and,  outrunning  the  boat,  gathered  about 
them  again  as  sheep  about  a  shepherd.  Here,  after 
he  had  preached  to  them,  occurred  one  of  those 
ebullitions  of  religious  excitement  which  gave  rise 
to  the  incident  known  as  the  miracle  of  the  loaves 
and  fishes.  Popular  enthusiasm  is  an  excellent 
medium  for  miracle  tales  to  ripen  in.  What  prob- 
ably happened  was  that  the  multitude  were  so  fired 
by  hope  of  the  kingdom  that  they  forgot  their  hunger 
and  hung  about  until  Jesus,  having  first  dismissed 
his  disciples  toward  Bethsaida  upon  the  ship,  sent 
them  away.  It  was  the  plan,  no  doubt,  to  rejoin  the 
twelve  after  he  had  refreshed  himself  on  the  moun- 
tain, as  his  custom  was  after  any  notable  effort,  by 
deep  draughts  of  prayer.  And  along  in  the  fourth 
watch  of  the  night  his  disciples,  being  on  the  sea 

and  the  moon  shining,  saw  him  come  walking  on  the 
7  91 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


water  as  though  he  would  have  passed  them.  But 
they,  thinking  him  a  spirit,  cried  out  in  alarm  until 
he  spoke  to  them  and  came  into  the  ship  and  com- 
forted them.  So  Mark  sets  down  what  he  recalled 
of  what  Peter  told  him. 

There  was  an  earlier  incident  still  of  the  crossing 
of  this  same  lake,  on  the  night  before  the  healing  of 
the  demoniac  which  led  to  their  being  avoided  by 
the  cities  of  Gadara.  On  that  occasion  a  storm 
arose — one  of  those  sudden  flaws  of  wind  whirling 
down  from  Hermon  to  be  sucked  into  the  Rift  of 
Jordan.  They  would  spring  up  all  in  an  instant, 
beating  the  lake  from  jade  to  blue  and  silver  and  then 
white  with  spume,  and  as  suddenly  die  away  again. 
But  while  the  clumsy  fishing-craft  labored  in  the 
teeth  of  it  Jesus  slept  until  the  boatmen,  at  the  last 
gasp  of  their  strength  and  skill,  cried  to  him,  "  Mas- 
ter, help  or  we  perish."  Immediately,  when  he  was 
awakened,  he  said  to  them,  "Why  are  ye  fearful,  O 
ye  of  little  faith?"  and  also  he  said,  "Peace,  be  still," 
and  the  wind  fell  off,  and  the  ship  righted.  All  of 
which  can  be  explained  away  by  anybody  who  finds 
himself  endowed  with  the  kind  of  mind  which  de- 
mands it.  Did  Peter  really  tell  Mark  that  Jesus 
walked  on  the  water  or  that  he  walked  along  it,  along 
the  shallow,  tideless  beach,  so  lost  in  meditation  that 
it  was  not  until  they  called  to  him  from  the  boat, 
anchored  a  few  feet  offshore,  that  he  was  aware  of 

92 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


them?  Had  he  been  there  all  the  night,  walking  by 
the  still  waters,  instead  of  on  the  mountain  where 
they  supposed  him?  Peter  should  have  known,  but 
certainly  if  he  knew  it  took  more  than  a  miracle  of 
walking  on  the  water  to  keep  Peter  faithful  at 
the  crisis  at  Jerusalem.  After  all,  what  a  miracle 
needs  for  its  acceptance  is  demonstration  rather 
than  argument.  We  believe  the  miracles  of  heal- 
ing because  we  have  known  of  cures  being  accom- 
plished in  our  own  day,  and  we  do  not  believe 
in  walking  on  the  water,  because  it  isn't  done  among 
our  acquaintances.  Such  incidents  as  these  are  told 
of  all  prophets,  as  a  symbol  of  the  extension  of  their 
powers  over  fields  felt  to  be  within  man's  province, 
but  as  yet  beyond  his  capacity. 

What  actually  did  happen  was  that  the  ship, 
instead  of  making  port  at  Bethsaida  as  had  been 
planned,  was  blown  out  of  its  course  back  to  the 
coast  of  Galilee.  Here  the  very  thing  that  Jesus 
had  sought  to  avoid  at  Capernaum  awaited  him.  He 
was  immediately  recognized  and  beset  by  the  sick 
borne  in  litters,  and  by  throngs  struggling  only  for 
the  touch  of  his  garments.  Many  that  touched  him 
were  made  whole  by  the  faith  that  was  in  them,  but 
it  is  notable  here  that  he  is  not  said  to  have  healed 
anybody  purposefully.  From  this  time  forth  he 
showed  a  tendency  deliberately  to  avoid  the  work 
of  healing  as  an  impediment  to  his  preaching  career. 

93 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


There  is  a  hint  in  the  gospel  narrative  that  at  this 
juncture,  when  his  popularity  in  the  thickly  popu- 
lated plain  of  Gennesaret  had  reached  its  height, 
there  was  a  tentative  attempt  to  put  him  at  the 
head  of  some  sort  of  organized  revolution,  an  attempt 
which  he  evaded.  This  would  account  for  several 
things  that  followed  in  the  interim  between  the  re- 
turn of  the  twelve  and  the  journey  up  to  Jerusalem. 
It  accounts  for  the  falling  away  of  the  disappointed 
populace,  and  for  the  secrecy  which  was  maintained 
as  to  his  movements  afterward.  He  might  have 
wished  to  avoid  another  popular  demonstration,  so 
uncomprehending,  and  his  frequent  trips  across  the 
border  of  Galilee  might  easily  have  been  to  escape 
the  attention  of  Herod,  who  at  this  time  certainly 
heard  of  him  and  began  to  wonder  if  this  might  not 
be  John  the  Baptist  come  to  life  again  to  vex  him. 

About  this  time  we  read  of  Pharisees  coming  all 
the  way  from  Jerusalem  to  see  and  question.  They 
found  for  their  first  item  that  he  and  his  disciples 
ate  with  unwashed  hands;  that  is  to  say,  that  they 
omitted  the  ceremonial  symbol  of  cleansing  before 
meat.  Attempting  a  rebuke,  they  found  themselves 
rebuked  in  turn,  and  that  roundly,  convicted  of  lip 
service,  of  hypocrisy,  of  neglecting  the  command- 
ments of  God  in  favor  of  their  traditions,  making 
clean  the  outside  of  the  cup  and  the  platter,  but  in- 
wardly full  of  ravening  and  wickedness.  He  cried 

94 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


woe  unto  them  for  the  tithing  of  mint  and  cumin 
and  passing  over  the  judgment  and  the  love  of  God; 
woe  for  that  they  loved  the  chief  seats  in  the  syna- 
gogue and  greetings  in  the  market.  "Woe  unto  you 
scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites,  ye  are  as  graves 
which  appear  not,  and  men  that  walk  over  them  are 
not  aware  of  them!"  So  are  they  who  are  under  the 
influences  of  Pharisees  defiled  by  unsuspected  cor- 
ruption. 

And  one  of  the  lawyers,  those  whose  business  it 
was  to  draw  out  of  the  scriptures  interpretations  to 
suit  the  exigencies  of  his  clients,  said,  "Master,  say- 
ing this  thou  reproachest  us  also."  And  Jesus  an- 
swering, said: 

"Woe  unto  you  also,  ye  lawyers  ...  for  you  build 
sepulchers  to  the  prophets,  and  your  fathers  killed 
them."  With  much  more  in  the  same  strain  to  the 
effect  that  the  blood  of  all  the  prophets  should  be 
required  of  their  generation.  "For,"  said  he,  re- 
ferring to  their  method  of  distorting  the  scriptures 
to  their  advantage,  "Ye  have  taken  away  the  key 
of  knowledge;  ye  entered  not  in  yourselves" — into 
the  understanding  of  God,  he  meant — "and  those 
that  were  entering  ye  hindered." 

Then  he  called  the  people  to  him  and  deliberately 
tore  across  the  whole  fabric  of  Levitical  cleansing 
which  held  the  theory  and  practice  of  Pharisaism 
together.  Once  for  all  he  rid  his  name  people  of 

95 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


the  accumulated  tradition  which  reduced  the  proc- 
ess of  daily  living  to  a  formula  in  the  effort  to  avoid 
defiling  or  being  defiled.  "For  there  is  nothing 
without  a  man,"  taught  Jesus,  "  which  entering  into 
a  man  can  defile  him,  but  the  things  which  come  out 
of  him  ...  for  out  of  the  heart  of  men  proceed  evil 
thoughts  .  .  .  thefts,  covetousness,  deceit,  lascivious- 
ness  .  .  .  all  these  things  come  from  within  and  defile 


a  man." 


It  was  a  pronouncement  which  had  effects  far 
reaching  in  the  organization  of  his  followers  after  his 
death,  and  carried  them  beyond  what  Jesus  himself 
found  necessary;  it  became,  in  fact,  the  door  through 
which  the  gospel  passed  to  the  Gentiles. 

But  he  had  struck  at  a  very  tender  part  in  the 
armor  of  Pharisaical  respectability,  and  from  this 
time  on  he  became  the  special  mark  of  their  ani- 
mosity, seeking  always  to  provoke  him  to  the  point 
at  which  the  law  might  take  hold  of  him.  It  had 
something  to  do,  no  doubt,  with  the  privacy  of  his 
movements;  though  that  would  have  found  suffi- 
cient excuse  in  the  wish  to  instruct  and  prepare  his 
disciples  for  the  work  which  now,  by  divine  intuition, 
he  saw  shaping  dimly  before  them.  Leaving  Beth- 
saida,  he  is  heard  of  in  the  parts  of  Dalmanutha  and 
in  the  borders  of  Magadan;  he  journeyed  to  Tyre 
and  Sidon.  Here  he  was  in  a  region  predominately 
Gentile  and,  until  his  return  from  Csesarea-Philippi, 

96 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


out  of  the  jurisdiction  of  Herod.  He  went  unrecog- 
nized for  the  most  part,  and  undeclared;  but  a  man 
so  marked  as  Jesus,  attended  by  twelve  who  pay 
him  the  deepest  attention  and  reverence,  cannot 
always  be  hid.  Near  Dalmanutha  Pharisees  came 
forth  again,  this  time  demanding  a  sign.  His  dis- 
ciples being  of  the  masses  and  distrusting  all  aristoc- 
racies either  of  manners  or  morals,  thought  they 
came  to  tempt  him,  but  Jesus  understood  them  bet- 
ter. His  scorn  licked  them  like  a  flame,  "Hypo- 
crites, thinking  to  discern  the  sky  and  not  able  to 
read  the  signs  of  the  times!"  which  showed  that  he 
had  been  reading  them  himself  to  some  purpose; 
but  to  their  wicked  and  adulterous  generation  no 
sign  should  be  given,  save  the  sign  of  the  prophet 
Jonas,  the  sign  of  their  own  degeneracy  which  called 
for  a  signal  handling  from  God.  On  two  or  three 
occasions  during  this  journey,  compassion  broke 
down  his  reluctance  to  heal,  though  more  than  ordi- 
nary precautions  were  taken  to  prevent  the  healing 
from  being  known.  It  is  notable  that  on  these 
occasions,  lacking  the  flux  of  a  popular  belief  in 
him,  he  sometimes  reinforced  his  method  by  sym- 
bolic touchings  and  an  application  to  the  eyeballs 
of  the  blind. 

On  his  journey  into  Tyre  and  Sidon  one  incident 
preserved  to  us  shows  the  gradual  widening  of  his 
mind  to  the  world  outside  of  Jewry.  In  one  of  the 

97 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


cities  where  he  concealed  himself  he  was  recognized 
by  a  Syrophcenician  woman  who  would  have  had 
him  cast  forth  a  devil  out  of  her  daughter.  "But," 
said  Jesus,  "let  the  children  first  be  filled;  it  is  not 
meet  to  take  the  children's  bread  and  cast  it  unto 
the  dogs."  There  spoke  the  Nazarene  and  the 
Hebrew,  thinking  of  the  chosen  people.  "Yea, 
Lord,"  the  woman  answered  him  in  his  own  figure, 
"but  the  dogs  under  the  table  eat  of  the  children's 
crumbs."  And  the  answer  pleased  him,  for  though, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  centurion,  he  had  not  found 
such  faith  in  Israel,  he  honored  it  when  he  found  it. 

§ 

They  would  have  been  a  month  or  two  at  this 
business,  holding  on  until  late  in  November,  if,  as  I 
think,  it  was  the  advent  of  the  early  rains  which 
turned  them  east  and  south  from  Ccesarea-Philippi. 
They  passed  over  Ephraim;  on  the  plains  of  Phoe- 
nicia they  smelled  the  sea.  Toward  Sidon  they 
heard  it  pounding,  saw  between  the  low  coast  hills 
its  white  hands  cast  up.  Hereabout  they  struck 
into  the  great  coast  road  passing  between  Surrepta 
and  Sidon,  followed  it  as  far  as  the  gorge  of  Litany, 
perhaps — for  it  is  not  stated  that  they  entered  into 
either  of  the  cities — and,  climbing  the  sharp  comb 
of  hills  between  that  and  the  upper  Jordan,  dropped 
down  to  Csesarea-Philippi.  For  the  most  part  it 
was  pleasant  going,  past  high,  well-watered  valleys 

98 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


and  woods  of  maple,  oak,  and  bay.  In  the  neighbor- 
hood of  cities  more  Roman  than  Galilee  they  saw 
instruments  of  ignominious  execution  set  up,  and 
those  melancholy  processions,  perhaps — the  criminal 
bearing  his  cross,  whipped  forth  by  the  soldiery, 
and  following  afar  off,  the  rabble,  curious  and  scoff- 
ing. 

They  would  put  in  awhile  at  sequestered  villages, 
preaching  perhaps  to  such  select  few  as  were  able 
to  hear  the  Word,  and  then  to  the  road  again,  where 
they  slept  at  ancient  khans,  at  shepherds'  huts,  and 
many  a  night  all  open  to  the  stars.  They  ate  such 
food  as  they  bought  at  the  wayside,  rough,  wild  figs 
of  the  sycomore,  and  parched  grain  gleaned  in  the 
fields.  They  would  sit  Eastern  fashion  on  the 
ground,  and,  each  making  his  little  fire  of  the  stalks, 
and  threshing  out  the  scorched  ear  in  the  hand, 
they  would  wash  down  the  half-cooked  grain  with 
wine  from  a  goatskin  bottle,  while  they  talked  of 
things  pertaining  to  the  kingdom.  At  the  end  of 
the  long  twilight  there  would  come  a  moment  when, 
with  heads  bowed  and  covered,  there  would  run  a 
reverent  murmur  about  the  camp — Hear,  0  Israel, 
the  Lord  thy  God  is  one  Lord.  .  .  .  The  immemorial 
declaration  of  the  Shema. 

Art  has  done  too  much  for  this  man,  to  paint  him 
forever  tried,  scourged,  forever  a-dying.  He  was 
not  only  a  man  of  the  small  towns,  but  of  the  hills, 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


the  open  road.  He  is  seen  at  his  best  here,  striding 
a  little  ahead  of  his  companions,  bronzed,  hardy, 
the  turban  off  to  catch  the  mountain  coolness,  the 
long  hair  blown  backward  from  the  rapt  countenance, 
and  over  him  a  higher  heaven  than  had  yet  lifted 
upon  man.  Of  the  twelve  or  fourteen  months  which 
scholars  allow  to  his  ministry,  how  much  of  it  was 
spent  out  of  cover!  At  the  preaching  of  John  in 
the  Rift  of  Jordan,  on  the  mount  of  the  Wilderness, 
in  the  hills  back  of  Gennesaret,  on  the  road  to  Csesa- 
rea-Philippi,  sleeping  under  the  oaks  at  Gethsemane. 
Nothing  else  accounts  so  readily  for  his  preoccupa- 
tion with  the  natural  rather  than  the  institutional 
relations  of  men. 

It  was  in  this  fashion  he  came  to  Philip's  hand- 
some capital.  Philip  the  Tetrarch  was  as  much  of 
a  Jew  as  a  brother  of  Herod  Antipas  could  be,  and 
Perea  was  a  district  counted  to  Israel,  though  its 
influences  were  largely  Greek.  The  citadel,  from 
its  rocky  promontory,  overlooks  the  wheat-fields 
and  the  mulberry-trees  of  the  upper  Jordan  valley. 
Here  full  born  from  its  basalt  cavern,  sacred  to  the 
god  of  the  Beast-in-man,  springs  Israel's  sacred 
river.  Close  to  the  spot  where  the  faith  of  the  God- 
in-man  received  its  earliest  formative  impulse,  still 
it  wets  with  its  spray  between  the  wild  rose  and  the 
honeysuckle,  Pan's  ancient  altar.  It  is  not  recorded 

that  Jesus  entered  Csesarea-Philippi,  but  he  remained 

100 


THE    MAN 


in  the  vicinity  long  enough  to  be  recognized  and 
sought  for  healing,  and  for  the  great  change  which 
had  long  been  foreshadowed  in  the  character  of 
his  ministry  to  reach  its  full  development.  For 
it  was  here  that  Jesus  put  to  the  twelve  a  question 
which  must  have  been  shaping  in  his  own  mind 
ever  since  the  early  summer,  when  John  had  first 
put  it  to  him  by  the  mouth  of  two  of  his  own  disciples. 

"Whom  do  men  say  that  I  am?" 

And  they  answered  him:  "John  the  Baptist. 
But  some  say  Elias  and  others  One  of  the  Prophets." 
For  it  was  always  in  the  minds  of  Israel  that  the 
True-Speaking  could  pass  in  and  out  of  Life  and 
come  again.  Jesus  held  them  steadily  to  the 
question. 

"Whom  say  ye  that  I  am?"  And  Peter,  the  im- 
petuous, burst  out  with  the  faith  that  burned  in 
him,  "Thou  art  the  Christ." 

Then  said  Jesus,  "Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Bar- 
jona,  for  flesh  and  blood  hath  not  revealed  to  thee, 
but  my  Father  which  is  in  Heaven." 

It  must  have  been  here,  and  by  the  help  of  what 
he  accepted  as  a  revelation  on  the  part  of  his  dis- 
ciples, that  Jesus  settled  for  himself  much  that  must 
have  seemed  difficult  and  perplexing  in  his  own  ex- 
perience. He  had  begun  the  preaching  of  the  King- 
dom of  God  at  hand  as  a  joyous  certainty,  a  common 

heritage  of  the  time,  his  only  by  a  short  priority 

101 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


of  announcement.  Feeling  his  knowledge  of  these 
things  only  a  small  part  of  what  might  be  gathered 
up  by  any  sincere  soul  who  addressed  himself  to  such 
discovery,  he  had  come,  as  do  all  prophets  and  poets, 
to  find  it  looked  upon  with  suspicion  by  tlie  multi- 
tude, a  strange  and  singular  thing,  misunderstood 
and  misrated. 

As  his  revelation  increased  in  him,  together  with 
his  knowledge  of  the  want  of  it  in  others,  he  saw 
even  between  himself  and  his  chosen  intimates  a 
gulf  immeasurable.  It  is  at  this  point  that  genius 
falters.  Sometimes  in  sheer  terror  of  being  alone 
with  its  message,  it  fails  altogether,  or  weakly  turns 
back  to  seek  in  human  relations  a  surcease  of  strange- 
ness. But  Jesus,  finding  himself  so  much  in  ad- 
vance of  his  time  that  twenty  centuries  have  scarcely 
caught  up  with  him,  found  himself  unaffrighted  be- 
cause not  wholly  without  direction.  Woven  out  of 
the  faith  of  his  race,  by  a  long  line  of  prophets,  the 
mantle  of  Messiahship  waited  for  him  who  could 
fulfil  it.  It  cannot  be  said  that  at  any  time  until 
the  very  last  day  of  his  life  Jesus  publicly  assumed 
it,  but  from  this  time  forth  he  went  clothed  in  the 
certainty  of  harmony  between  himself  and  the  ex- 
pectation of  the  ages.  Though  his  time  rejected  him, 
he  became  a  part  of  all  times  in  as  much  as  he  was  a 
figure  of  prophecy.  The  feeling  of  being  prepared 

for  and  expected  satisfied  for  the  man  of  Nazareth 

102 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


that  sense  of  belonging,  the  hunger  for  which  frets 
great  souls  to  their  undoing. 

That  the  incident  stood  both  in  his  mind  and  that 
of  his  disciples  for  a  definitely  changed  relationship 
appears  at  once.  When  he  had  charged  them  that 
they  should  make  none  of  these  things  known,  he 
began  to  teach  them  how  it  was  that  he  should  go 
up  to  Jerusalem,  and  what  things  he  should  suffer 
there.  Certainly  he  must  have  carried  these  things 
in  his  mind  for  some  time  before  he  spoke  of  them; 
finding  no  way  to  reconcile  them  with  his  first 
joyous  prevision  of  the  kingdom,  until  he  had  ac- 
cepted himself  in  the  light  of  a  fulfilment  of  proph- 
ecy. That  his  disciples  found  them  utterly  irrec- 
oncilable with  any  conception  they  had  of  him 
appears  from  Peter's  hasty,  "Far  be  it  from  thee, 
Lord;  this  shall  not  be  unto  thee."  But  even  Peter, 
reminded  in  his  turn  that  he  smelled  of  the  things  of 
men  rather  than  of  God,  could  hardly  have  under- 
stood what  followed.  For  Jesus,  calling  the  people 
to  him,  and  his  disciples,  also,  said:  "Whosoever  will 
come  after  me,  let  him  deny  himself  and  take  up 
his  cross  and  follow  me.  For  whosoever  will  save 
his  life  shall  lose  it;  but  whosoever  shall  lose  his  life 
for  my  sake  and  the  gospel's,  the  same  shall  save  it. 
For  what  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  shall  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul?  .  .  ." 

Other  things  he  said  which,  as  they  afterward  re- 

103 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


called,  referred  more  explicitly  to  the  fate  which 
was  even  then  preparing  for  him.  But  it  seems 
hardly  possible  it  could  have  been  clearly  indicated 
or  at  all  understood,  for  when  the  blow  fell  it  found 
them  wholly  unprepared.  In  the  light  of  what  oc- 
curred later  they  harked  back  to  interpret  what  he 
had  said.  At  the  time  other  things  better  remem- 
bered drove  it  from  their  minds. 

Some  days  after  Peter's  ready  declaration,  Jesus 
took  him,  together  with  James  and  John,  high  and 
apart  on  the  mountain  for  one  of  those  sessions  of 
silent  prayer  to  which  he  owed  his  spiritual  suste- 
nance. 

Hermon  draws  up  out  of  the  plain  of  the  upper 
Jordan  as  the  roots  of  a  great  oak  lift  out  of  the 
ground.  The  land  is  filled  with  the  sound  of  run- 
ning waters;  full-born  rivers  leap  from  limestone 
caves  and  go  roaring  toward  the  Rift.  The  shrub 
is  close-leaved  here;  at  intervals  great  trees  stand 
up;  they  reach  the  borders  of  perpetual  snows. 

On  this  occasion  the  little  company  must  have 
climbed  up  beyond  the  tree-line  into  the  region  of 
the  stony  waste  before  Jesus  drew  aside  for  his  hour 
of  communion.  Wearied  sooner  at  their  own  de- 
votions, humbly  his  disciples  watched  him.  While 
he  prayed  they  saw  the  fashion  of  his  countenance 
change,  grow  white  and  shining,  and  a  bright  cloud 
overshadowed  them.  These  were  very  simple  souls 

104 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


to  whom  undreamed-of  things  may  happen.  While 
Jesus  was  wrapt  from  himself  did  a  white  flash  of 
his  burning  spirit  strike  across  to  them?  Such  things 
are  possible.  Or  was  it  the  alpen  glow,  that  most 
transcendent  of  all  the  visible  manifestations  of  God, 
flooding  down  from  Hermon,  touching  all  things  with 
its  divine  transfiguration?  They  were  fishermen  of 
the  low,  lake  region  to  whom  the  stained  air  laving 
the  peaks  of  the  mountains  was  as  strange  as  splen- 
did. It  spoke  to  them  as  all  beauty  of  nature  speaks 
to  the  devout,  of  God.  Bathed  in  it,  they  saw  their 
Messiah  as  it  became  all  true  Jews  to  see  him,  radi- 
ant between  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  in  the 
figures  of  Moses  and  Elias. 

Coming  down  from  the  heights,  touched  with  awe 
of  the  celestial  wonder,  they  ventured  a  timid  ques- 
tion. "Why,"  said  they,  "do  the  Scribes  say  that 
Elias  should  come  first?"  For  if  this  was  truly  the 
Christ  of  prophecy,  there  wanted  somewhat  to  the 
fulfilment. 

Said  Jesus,  "Elias  is  already  come,  but  they  knew 
him  not  and  did  unto  him  whatsoever  they  listed." 
By  which  they  understood  him  to  refer  to  John  the 
Baptist.  More  is  reported  of  the  same  character, 
but  all  too  much  colored  by  what  happened  in  the 
interval  between  the  writing  and  the  recording  to 
be  veridical.  It  is  enough,  however,  to  define  the 
path  by  which  their  thoughts  traveled  to  the  idea 

105 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


of  Jesus  and  his  teaching  which  finally  possessed 
them. 

There  was  a  longer  road  still,  in  which  they  were 
to  reconcile  the  person  of  the  crucified  carpenter 
with  the  glorious  figure  of  the  Messiah  limned  upon 
the  Hebrew  consciousness,  but  from  this  time  forth 
we  see  Jesus  held  to  the  perfect  poise  by  the  knowl- 
edge of  what  God  expected  of  him.  He  was  not  the 
first  man  nor  the  last  to  perish  for  the  Word,  but 
this  was  unique  in  him,  that  he  never  doubted  nor 
repented.  And  if  he  saw  in  himself  the  fulfilment 
of  prophecy,  the  Anointed  one  of  Israel,  who  shall 
gainsay  him?  If  he  was  not  the  Messiah  the  Jews 
expected,  he  was  at  least  the  only  one  they  ever 
had. 


And  it  shall  come  to  fiass  when  he  has  or  ought 
low  everything  that  is  in  the  world, 

And  has  sat  down  in  fieace  for  the  age  on  the  throne 
of  his  kingdom, 

'Then  joy  shall  he  revealed, 

And  rest  shall  afifiear! 

Then  healing  shall  descend  in  dew, 

And  disease  shall  withdraw, 

And  anxiety  and  anguish  and  lamentation  jtass  from 

amongst  men, 
And  gladness  proceed  through  the  whole  earth. 

And  wild  beasts  shall  come  forth  from  the  forest 

and  minister  unto  men, 
And  as£s  and  dragons  shall  come  forth  from  their 

holes  to  submit  themselves  to  a  little  child. 

And  it  shall  come  to  £ass  in  those  days  that  the  reader 
shall  not  grow  weary, 

lAZor  those  that  build  be  toilworn, 

For  the  works  shall  of  themselves  speedily  advance, 

Together  with  those  who  do  them  in  much  tran- 
quillity. 

[From  the  Apocalypse  of  Baruch,  a  Jewish  work  of  the  last 
half  of  the  first  century,  which  strongly  influenced  the  style 
of  the  synoptic  gospels.] 


VT 


AJD  if  not  the  Messiah  of  expectation,  how  then 
did  he  succeed  in  fulfilling  the  prophecy  with- 
out satisfying  the  dream?  His  message  he  knew  to 
be  Messianic,  but  that  he  himself  fell  short  in  some 
particulars  of  the  long-cherished  ideal  seems  to  be 
indicated  in  the  last  clause  of  the  message  he  sent 
to  John,  "Blessed  is  he  that  finds  no  occasion  of 
stumbling  in  me."  Here  we  see  the  man  from 
Nazareth  imposing  his  Levitical  training  on  the 
prophet.  Thus  and  so  Messiah  was  to  come;  and 
yet  here  was  the  saving  Word  delivered  in  quite 
other  ways. 

The  one  feature  irreconcilable  between  the  in- 
heritance and  the  revelation  of  Jesus  was  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  kingdom.  This  was  to  be  the  work 
of  the  Messiah,  and  it  is  probable  that  when  Jesus 
began  to  preach  his  early  coming  —  before  they  had 
gone  through  the  cities  of  Israel  —  he  was  thinking 
of  a  person  quite  apart  from  himself.  The  growth 
of  the  idea  that  he  himself  was  the  fulfilment  of 
prophecy  was  shown  in  him;  it  did  not  reach  him 
much  in  advance  of  the  certainty  that  if  he  was  to 

109 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel,  it  was  not  to  be  in  his 
own  time  and  his  own  flesh.  He  was  to  prepare  for 
it  by  revealing  the  true  nature  of  the  Father  and 
establishing  kinship  between  God  and  man.  He 
was  to  reorganize  the  thoughts  and  affections  of 
men  in  the  Spirit  and  in  Love.  But  more  and  more 
as  he  felt  on  all  sides  the  pressure  of  Roman  empiry, 
of  established  governmental  and  economic  systems, 
he  realized  the  necessity  of  breaking  up  the  mold 
of  society,  of  pouring  its  fluid  stuff  into  lines  more 
in  conformity  with  his  revelation  of  Brotherhood  in 
man.  To  speak  in  our  tongue,  Jesus  accepted  the 
idea  of  social  revolution  without  any  clear  notion 
of  how  it  was  to  be  accomplished.  The  entrance 
of  the  individual  into  the  kingdom  was  a  matter 
of  personal  spiritual  regeneration  to  which  Jesus 
held  the  key.  The  setting  up  of  the  great  com- 
mandment as  a  human  institution  lay  in  a  region 
beyond  the  reach  of  his  most  poignant  revelation. 
But  again,  this  was  to  be  the  work  of  the  Messiah, 
and  if  Jesus  were  the  Christ,  then  his  work  somehow, 
in  some  fashion.  And  Jesus  was  to  die.  Of  this  he 
seems  to  have  been  certain  from  Csesarea-Philippi 
forward;  intimations  of  his  end  thickened  as  the 
time  drew  on.  Casting  about  for  the  solution  of 
these  apparently  irreconcilable  conditions,  he  fixed 
upon  the  common  belief  in  the  return  of  the  prophets. 

How  readily  Israel  could  accept  such  passage  in  and 

no 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


out  of  death  is  seen  in  their  question  about  John  the 
Baptist.  John  was  Elias  and  Jesus  was  John  come 
again.  And  if  Jesus  were  Christ,  why  should  not 
a  second  coming,  not  in  the  flesh,  but  with  Power, 
show  forth  the  wonders  that  the  first  had  missed? 
In  some  such  fashion  the  man  from  Nazareth  worked 
out  his  incompleted  revelation. 

Something  had  been  accomplished  by  the  tempo- 
rary withdrawal  of  Jesus  from  the  cities  of  Genne- 
saret.  Once  for  all  he  had  cleared  himself  from  any 
movement  which  had  for  its  objective  the  taking  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  by  violence.  His  work  of 
healing  was  definitely  relegated  to  a  secondary  place. 
Disappointed  of  this  transitory  hope,  the  rabble  fell 
away,  but  many  sincere  souls  still  resorted  to  him. 

One  phrase  from  an  incident  at  Csesarea-Philippi 
lights  up  for  us,  as  by  a  spark  struck  from  a  common 
experience,  the  state  of  mind  of  the  devout  of  Israel, 
"Lord,  I  believe,  Help  thou  mine  unbelief."  It  was 
the  cry  that  had  burst  with  tears  from  the  father  of 
the  dumb  demoniac  whom  the  disciple  could  not 
heal.  Coming  down  from  the  mount  of  transfigura- 
tion, he  had  found  a  crowd  gathered  about  the 
remnant  of  his  disciples,  and  in  their  midst  the  man 
begging  relief  for  his  son.  It  was  not  until  the  Mas- 
ter accosted  him  with  the  customary  formula, 
"Belie vest  thou  that  I  canst  do  this  thing?"  that  the 

deep-seated  doubt  came  to  the  surface  in  that  cry. 

in 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


So  Israel,  unhealed  by  all  its  prophets,  voiced  its 
doubt  and  its  desire.  Upon  this  cry  the  common 
faith  tossed  to  and  fro,  rallied,  broke,  and  scattered, 
came  to  fulfilment  at  last  in  martyrdom  long  after 
he  had  passed.  There  were  moments  when  it  shook 
its  shadow  over  the  surface  of  his  mood.  He  was 
impatient  with  the  incompetence  of  his  disciples. 
.  .  .  "O  faithless  generation,  how  long  shall  I  suffer 
you!"  He  pronounced  woe  on  Chorazin  and  Beth- 
saida.  At  times  a  wistful  humanness  broke  through. 
"Can  it  be  that  a  prophet  shall  perish  from  Jeru- 
salem!" 

Not  that  there  wanted  occasions  to  try  the  pa- 
tience of  the  teacher.  No  sooner  had  the  disciples 
been  given  leave  to  think  of  Jesus  as  the  Messiah 
than  they  were  found,  on  the  way  back  from  Csesarea- 
Philippi,  in  fact,  disputing  who  should  be  greatest. 
A  man  discovered  casting  out  devils  in  the  name  of 
Jesus  was  forbid  by  them  because  he  was  not  of 
their  following.  To  both  of  these,  especially  to  the 
latter — first  instance  of  the  independent  spread  of 
his  teachings  during  his  life — Jesus  made  answer 
and  illustration  so  unequivocal  that  it  is  a  mystery 
how  his  name  people  have  so  long  avoided  both. 
"For  whosoever  shall  give  a  cup  of  cold  water  in  my 
name  hath  done  it  unto  me  ..."  he  said,  touching 
the  question  of  unauthorized  healing,  and  left  them 

in  no  doubt  as  to  the  quality  of  their  offense  against 

112 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


"one  of  these  lesser  ones  who  believe  in  me."  But 
the  millstone  hangs  still  about  the  neck  of  the 
church,  because  of  what  it  has  done  to  those  who  take 
the  name  of  Jesus  in  some  fashion  other  than  their 
own. 

Incidents  such  as  these,  showing  how  far  his 
chosen  disciples  were  from  comprehending  him,  con- 
tributed to  the  sense  of  disappointment  voiced  in 
his  invective  against  the  cities  of  Galilee.  .  .  .  "For 
if  the  mighty  works  which  have  been  done  in  thee 
had  been  done  in  Tyre  and  Sidon,  they  would  have 
repented  in  sackcloth  and  ashes."  It  had  its  part 
in  the  urge  which  drove  him,  knowing  what  awaited 
him  there,  to  set  his  face  steadily  toward  Jerusalem. 

This  would  have  been  two  or  three  months  before 
Passover,  nearer  if  we  accept  the  incident  of  the 
temple  tax  which  was  collected  in  Capernaum.  The 
rains  would  have  been  well  on,  the  winter  wheat  was 
up,  and  as  many  as  were  able  making  ready  for  the 
yearly  pilgrimage.  Altogether  an  excellent  time  to 
waken  men  to  the  immanence  of  the  kingdom. 

Concerning  the  manner  of  this  journey,  there  is 
little  said  but  much  indicated.  It  was  traveled  with 
a  considerable  company,  augmenting  as  they  went, 
Jesus  and  the  twelve  with  some  members  of  their 
families,  and  certain  women  who  ministered  to  them, 
Mary  of  Magdala,  out  of  whom  were  cast  seven 
devils,  and  some  others.  They  went  afoot,  with 

113 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


perhaps  a  donkey  or  two  for  the  slender  luggage; 
and  every  mile  they  trod  was  historic  holy  ground. 
It  was  the  custom,  on  approaching  a  village  where 
Jesus  would  teach,  for  two  or  three  of  the  disciples 
to  go  ahead  and  make  such  provision  as  they  could 
for  the  entertainment  of  the  Master,  announcing 
him,  and  no  doubt  appointing  a  place  where  he  could 
be  heard.  But  there  must  have  been  many  occa- 
sions between  villages  or  in  those  which  proved  in- 
hospitable, when  they  camped  happily  in  the  fields 
or  in  the  courtyard  of  the  wayside  khans.  It  ap- 
pears that  a  first  attempt  was  made  to  reach  Jeru- 
salem by  the  ancient  Egyptian  road  which  ran 
through  Samaria,  past  Sychar  and  the  vale  of 
Shechem,  but  the  Samaritans  would  not  receive 
them.  At  the  first  village  where  the  inhabitants 
proved  unfriendly  the  sons  of  Zebedee  would  have 
called  down  fire  upon  them  after  the  manner  of 
Elijah,  so  hardly  had  they  learned  the  lesson  that 
the  Son  of  Man  was  come  to  save  and  not  to  destroy. 
The  Samaritans,  always  an  easy,  idol-loving  people, 
closer  to  Rome  under  the  hand  of  the  Procurator 
Pontius  Pilate,  and  furthest  from  the  national  dream, 
pushed  their  indifference  to  the  prophet  to  the  pro- 
hibitive point,  for  we  hear  no  more  of  Jesus  having 
set  foot  in  the  country  of  Shechem.  They  returned, 
instead,  and  approached  Jerusalem  from  the  south- 
east by  way  of  the  other  side  of  Jordan. 

114 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


It  was  in  the  bitterness  of  this  rejection,  no  doubt, 
that  he  said  to  one  who  would  have  followed  him, 
"Foxes  have  holes  .  .  .  but  the  son  of  man  hath  not 
where  to  lay  his  head."  And  to  another  who  made 
excuse  that  he  must  first  bury  his  father,  "Let  the 
dead  bury  their  dead,"  since  dead  he  found  them  in 
the  spirit.  So  they  passed  to  the  parts  of  Syria  be- 
yond the  Bridge  from  which,  when  the  Bridge  was 
broken  under  the  heel  of  the  Roman  legionaries,  the 
tide  of  Islam  rolled  in  upon  them. 

This  is  a  high,  level  country  with  a  wind  always 
in  the  wheat  and  great  oaks  rustling  along  the  ridges. 
In  Gilead  there  is  balm,  fields  of  fragrant  herbs, 
orchards  of  pomegranate  and  apricot.  Moab  is  a 
land  of  pastures;  the  roadways  are  beaten  to  dust 
by  the  flocks;  toward  Amman  herds  of  camels  feed- 
ing. A  band  of  pilgrims  passing  from  city  to  city 
of  the  Greek  league  of  the  Decapolis  would  seldom 
be  far  from  the  sound  of  the  shepherds'  pipes  and 
the  heavy  bells  of  the  cattle  as  they  break  down  the 
wadis  to  the  drinking-places.  This  was  the  land  of 
Gad  and  Reuben,  and,  though  strong  in  Greek  in- 
fluence, was  still  predominantly  Hebrew.  Scarcely 
had  the  apostolic  band  set  foot  in  it  when  they  were 
met  by  Pharisees  with  the  customary  Levitical 
quibble. 

This  time  it  was  an  inquiry  as  to  whether  it  was 

lawful  for  a  man  to  put  away  his  wife  for  every  rea- 

115 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


son.  In  Jewry  the  power  of  divorce  lay  in  the  hands 
of  the  husband,  requiring  scarcely  more  than  the 
mere  form  of  saying  so  to  make  it  lawful.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  the  party  of  the  Pharisees  were  honestly 
opposed  to  the  abuses  which  had  sprung  up  under 
Roman  laxness,  but  it  is  also  probable  that  they  were 
not  unwilling  to  set  Jesus  at  odds  with  Herod,  who, 
in  the  thick  of  his  troubles  between  Herodias  and 
the  father  of  his  wife,  was  sensitive  on  the  subject 
of  divorce.  If  he  had  beheaded  John  for  his  stric- 
tures, what  might  he  not  be  provoked  to  undertake 
against  the  man  from  Nazareth?  Jesus,  however, 
with  his  customary  tact,  avoided  the  personal  issue 
and  maintained  the  stand  he  had  earlier  taken  of 
inviolable  marriage,  basing  it  not  upon  any  Levitical 
revelation,  but  as  is  inevitable,  upon  the  natural 
mating  habits  of  humankind  "as  it  was  in  the 
beginning."  Here,  too,  is  the  first  recognition  of 
human  expedient;  "because  of  the  hardness  of  your 
hearts,"  divorce  was  allowed  by  Moses.  Which  did 
not,  however,  render  less  obligatory  the  single,  life- 
long relation,  for  though  polygamy  was  still  to  be 
found,  it  appears  nowhere  to  have  crossed  his  horizon 
nor  to  have  entered  into  the  problem  of  early 
Christianity.  In  this  connection  one  may  speak 
of  the  sole  other  incident  which  illuminated  for  us, 
in  the  light  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus,  the  vexed  re- 
lations of  sex.  This  is  an  incident  which  finds  its 

116 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


way  into  no  canonical  writing  until  the  early  part 
of  the  second  century,  when  it  was  inserted  in  the 
document  attributed  to  John,  where,  in  spite  of 
some  exegetical  difficulties,  it  makes  good  its  claim 
to  consideration.  It  is  placed  in  the  vicinity  of 
Jerusalem,  and  by  tradition  wholly  unsupported  but 
of  high  antiquity,  connected  with  the  person  of  Mary 
of  Magdala.  By  those  of  the  priestly  party,  who 
hoped  to  catch  him  tripping,  there  was  brought  to 
him  a  woman  taken  in  adultery.  But  Jesus,  making 
as  though  he  heard  them  not,  stooping,  wrote  with 
his  finger  upon  the  ground,  and  when  they  con- 
tinued asking  what  should  be  done  to  her,  lifted  him- 
self at  last,  inquiring  of  them  the  penalty.  Where- 
upon her  accusers  insisted  that  it  was  lawful  she 
should  be  stoned.  Said  Jesus,  "Let  him  that  is 
without  sin  among  you  first  cast  a  stone."  In  this 
fashion  he  went  the  first  mile  which  they  compelled 
him.  But  when  at  the  end  of  the  second  he  found 
himself  alone  with  the  woman,  he  left  off  writing  to 
say,  "Hath  no  man  condemned  thee?" 

Said  she,  "No  man,  Lord." 

Then  said  Jesus:  "Neither  do  I  condemn  thee. 
Go,  sin  no  more." 

Words  and  acts,  they  are  both  of  a  piece  with  all 
that  we  know  of  Jesus;  for  was  he  not  among  the 
prophets  and  given  to  symbolic  acts  charged  with 
more  than  mere  words  conveyed?  Writing  in  the 

117 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


dust  was  it  not  to  say — for  we  do  not  know  if  he 
had  really  learned  to  write  at  all — even  so  is  this 
sin  of  which  you  accuse  her  written  in  the  body, 
which,  being  dust,  perishes?  Whether  or  not  the 
incident  occurred  as  stated,  it  goes  with  the  answer 
to  the  Pharisees  to  show,  that  though  Jesus  con- 
stituted chastity  a  matter  of  mind  as  well  as  body, 
he  made  no  more  of  lapses  from  it  than  of  other  sins, 
and  forgave  them  as  readily.  He  put  the  desire  of 
the  flesh  on  exactly  the  same  moral  footing  as  the 
greed  of  wealth  and  the  lust  of  pride,  neither  con- 
demning it  more  severely  as  the  church  has  done, 
nor  more  easily  excusing  as  is  the  way  of  the  world. 

It  is  doubtful,  however,  if  the  twelve  grasped  any- 
thing of  the  breath  of  his  comment  on  the  existing 
law,  allowed  by  Moses  because  of  "the  hardness  of 
their  hearts,"  for  we  find  them  moving  in  an  orbit 
as  narrow  almost  as  that  of  his  detractors,  forbid- 
ding the  children  which  were  brought  to  him  to 
be  blessed,  and  still  unlessened  when  he,  taking  a 
little  child  in  his  arms  and  setting  him  in  the  midst 
of  them,  declared  that  of  such  were  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  In  a  very  little  while  here  are  the  sons 
of  Zebedee,  at  the  first  opportunity  asking  for  the 
chief  seats- in  heaven. 

This  takes  us  back  a  little  to  one  of  the  earlier 
incidents  of  the  Perean  pilgrimage,  of  the  young  man 
who  had  kept  all  the  law  and  the  commandments 

118 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


from  his  youth  up,  and  was  still  concerned  as  to  how 
he  might  inherit  eternal  life.  Said  the  teacher: 
"One  thing  thou  lackest  .  .  .  sell  all  thou  hast  .  .  . 
take  up  thy  cross  and  follow  me."  But  to  the  dis- 
ciples, after  the  young  man  had  gone  away  grieving 
(for  he  had  great  possessions),  Jesus  said,  "How 
hardly  shall  a  rich  man  enter  into  the  kingdom." 

"And,"  says  Mark,  "the  disciples  were  aston- 
ished at  his  words." 

This  is  more  important  even  than  the  saying. 
They  were  astonished.  For  eight  or  nine  months 
they  had  been  with  him,  preaching  preparation  for 
the  kingdom,  and  this  was  the  first  they  had  heard 
of  personal  wealth  as  a  bar  to  entry;  a  serious  over- 
sight on  the  part  of  the  Master  if  we  are  to  read 
this  comment  on  the  particular  case  as  constituting 
an  essential  doctrine.  All  through  the  Galilean 
ministry  not  a  word  has  been  heard  of  it,  though 
Luke  expressly  tells  us  that  there  were  women  of 
substance  in  his  train.  Later  in  Jerusalem  we  find 
him  accepting  the  use  of  a  room  for  the  Passover, 
and  a  garden  without  the  walls,  from  those  of  his  fol- 
lowers whose  fortunes  permitted  of  such  lendings. 
It  appears,  however,  not  only  from  circumstances 
such  as  these,  but  from  what  immediately  follows, 
that  it  was  not  the  possession  of  riches  which  Jesus 
discredited,  but  the  attachment  to  them;  for  he 
goes  on  to  put  in  the  same  category  brethren  and 

119 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


sisters,  parent  or  wife  or  children.  Just  as  curt  had 
been  his  rejection  of  one  who  would  have  been  his 
disciple,  but  wished  first  to  bury  his  father.  The 
stress  upon  wealth  as  against  other  distractions  to 
the  spirit  is  ours,  not  Jesus'. 

Too  much  has  been  made  of  the  incident  of  the 
rich  young  man  and  of  a  later  parable  of  Lazarus 
and  Dives,  which  illustrated  a  popular  notion, 
pagan  as  well  as  Hebrew,  that  somehow  in  its  turn- 
ing the  wheel  of  life  must  bring  to  every  soul  the 
full  round  of  experience — to  the  poor  riches,  and  to 
the  rich  poverty,  and  to  those  that  mourned  rejoic- 
ing. Something  of  this  kind  must  have  been  in  the 
mind  of  the  disciples,  for  though  this  seems  to  have 
been  the  first  time  that  Jesus'  doctrine  of  self- 
abnegation  came  clear  to  them,  it  set  them  off  im- 
mediately in  the  direction  of  the  logical  compensa- 
tion. Something  of  tenderness  for  the  Master's 
disappointment  in  the  rich  young  man — for  Jesus, 
beholding  him,  had  loved  him — must  have  been  in 
Peter's,  "Lo,  we  have  left  all  and  followed  thee.". 
But  nothing  could  have  illustrated  so  completely  the 
gap  which  in  spite  of  all  this  intimate  fellowship  lay 
between  Jesus  and  his  disciples,  as  the  way  in  which 
James  and  John  turned  the  promise  of  spiritual  re- 
ward with  which  Jesus  met  the  profferred  consola- 
tion, into  a  hope  of  material  advancement.  It  was 

not  long  before  they  found  a  naive  expression  for  it. 

120 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


It  seems  that  while  they  were  on  the  way  to 
Jerusalem  the  reserve  and  caution  which  had  char- 
acterized the  movement  of  the  Master  for  the  past 
few  months  were  suddenly  laid  aside.  Jesus  re- 
sumed the  leadership,  walked  openly  at  the  head  of 
his  disciples,  filled  with  power.  In  answer  to  their 
fear  and  amazement  he  must  have  tried  again  to 
prepare  them  for  what  was  to  happen  shortly  at 
Jerusalem,  and  again  the  revelation  was  either  too 
symbolic  to  be  clear  or  too  clear  to  be  believable. 
All  that  they  seem  to  gather  from  it  was  that  the 
expected  apocalypse  was  at  hand,  and,  full  of  un- 
shakable confidence  in  the  result,  James  and  John 
preferred  their  request.  It  was  very  simply  that 
they  might  sit  the  one  on  the  right  hand,  the  other 
on  the  left,  of  him  in  glory. 

Said  the  Master:  "Ye  know  not  what  ye  ask. 
Can  ye  drink  of  the  cup  that  I  drink  of  and  be 
baptized  with  the  baptism  that  I  am  baptized  with?" 
They  thought  they  could,  knowing  nothing  of  what 
the  words  signified,  thinking  of  them,  no  doubt,  as 
purely  material,  and  that  death  and  humiliation 
could  in  no  wise  be  endured  by  one  who  healed  lepers 
and  raised  the  dying  by  the  hand.  But  it  was  not 
their  obtuseness  which  touched  Jesus  so  nearly,  nor 
the  jealousy  of  the  other  ten  at  their  asking,  as  the 
evidence  of  self-seeking,  the  utter  failure  of  his  dis- 
ciples to  grasp  the  teaching  which  the  last  phases 

121 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


of  his  life  were  so  completely  to  exemplify — the  need 
and  the  power  of  service.  "For  whoso  seeketh  his 
life  shall  lose  it  and  he  that  loseth  shall  find  .  .  . 
and  whosoever  will  be  chief  among  you,  let  him  be 
the  servant  of  all  ...  for  the  son  of  man  came  not 
to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister." 

§ 

Of  the  recorded  part  of  this  Perean  pilgrimage 
there  is  very  little  more  except  what  is  common  to 
all  his  ministry.  Of  healings  there  was  but  one — a 
blind  man  by  the  roadside  as  they  came  into  Jericho ; 
of  parables  the  same  sort  and  perhaps  the  same  that 
belonged  to  the  preaching  in  Galilee.  They  were 
all  of  the  kingdom  and  how  it  should  be  constituted, 
and  of  the  Fatherliness  of  God.  The  kingdom  of 
heaven  was  a  net  which  was  let  down  into  the  sea; 
it  was  a  field  of  sown  wheat  among  which  the  enemy 
scattered  tares;  it  was  the  leaven  hid  in  three  meas- 
ures of  meal.  It  was  anything  that  might  imply 
separation  of  what  is  good  from  what  is  evil,  the 
deliberate  choice  of  the  soul.  The  kingdom  was 
something  which,  when  you  had  found  it,  was  worth 
all  that  you  had  to  pay,  into  possession  of  which  you 
might  not  enter  without  the  full  price.  It  was  a 
little  child  whom  he  had  set  in  their  midst  and  said 
"such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  It  was  in  being 
all  that  the  child  was,  trusting,  doing  no  evil,  think- 
ing none,  all-loving,  glad.  The  kingdom  of  heaven 

122 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


proceeded  from  the  heart  outward  and  was  not 
affected  by  material  observances.  It  was  the  faith 
of  the  mustard-seed,  which,  by  merely  accepting  the 
condition  of  being  a  seed  and  growing,  became  as  a 
tree  in  the  branches  of  which  lodged  the  birds  of 
the  air.  "And  behold,  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
within  you." 

Of  God  there  was  less  to  say  because  simpler. 
He  was  a  father  pitying  his  children,  rejoicing  more 
over  one  sinner  which  repented  than  over  ninety- 
and-nine  which  went  not  astray.  He  was  the  just 
judge  and  the  wise  master;  the  friend  of  the  soul 
of  man.  He  heard  prayer  and  answered  it,  and 
men  ought  always  to  pray  and  to  faint  not. 

As  to  what  Jesus  said  of  himself  there  is  less  than 
this  generation  realizes.  Nursed  in  an  interpreta- 
tion of  Christianity  which  made  Jesus  the  chief 
part  of  his  own  teaching,  we  have  much  to  forget 
before  we  can  see  how  apart  he  held  himself,  from 
his  doctrine.  That  day  in  Nazareth  when  among  his 
own  kin  he  stood  up  in  the  synagogue  and  read  from 
the  book  of  Isaiah,  was  his  first  and  only  public  at- 
tempt to  represent  himself  as  the  fulfilment  of 
prophecy.  He  read : 

The  spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because  he  an- 
ointed me  to  preach  good  tidings  to  the  poor  .  .  .  to 
proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord.  But  there 

is  no  evidence  that  when  he  began  to  say,  "This 
9  123 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


day  is  the  scripture  fulfilled  in  your  ears,"  that  he 
thought  of  himself  as  anything  more  than  the 
scripture  described — an  appointed  preacher,  another 
voice  in  the  wilderness.  To  John,  who  sent  asking, 
he  offered  not  himself,  but  his  works.  Once  in  the 
press  at  Capernaum  a  woman  cried  out,  "Blessed 
be  the  womb  that  bore  thee  and  the  breasts  that 
gave  thee  suck."  And  he  answered  her,  rebukingly, 
"Rather  blessed  be  they  that  hear  the  word  of  God 
and  keep  it."  And  on  the  mountain,  "Why  call 
ye  me  Lord,  Lord,  and  do  not  the  things  that  I 
say?" 

Though  he  came  finally  to  accept  himself  as  the 
fulfilment  of  prophecy,  it  must  never  be  forgotten 
that  the  Messiah  of  expectation  was  not  thought  of 
as  a  man  of  divine  nature,  but  as  divinely  appointed. 
The  claims  which  Jesus  made  to  divinity  were  not 
different  in  kind  from  those  he  set  up  on  behalf  of 
every  man,  through  a  knowledge  of  sonship  with 
the  Father,  through  the  personal  revelation.  Strive, 
therefore  .  .  .  "to  know  yourselves  and  ye  shall  be 
aware  that  ye  are  the  sons  of  the  Father."  Sayings 
such  as  these  leave  us  in  no  doubt  that  Jesus  meant 
to  teach  the  kinship  of  God  and  man  as  a  reality, 
the  objective  of  the  soul's  immemorial  quest. 

Prophets  had  glimpsed  it;  the  East  had  made  the 
certainty  its  own,  but  with  the  difference  which 
marks  out  the  man  of  Nazareth  for  us  as  the  fore- 

124 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


most  of  Occidentals.  The  Orient  had  accepted  its 
recognition  of  the  deific  principle  in  man  as  an 
invitation  to  Nirvana,  the  final  reabsorption  of  self- 
hood in  Godhead.  And  at  the  point  where  the 
East  found  itself,  it  turned  its  back  on  humanity. 
To  Jesus  such  recognition  came  as  the  call  of  the 
open  road;  the  threshold  of  infinite  possibility,  "Be 
ye  perfect,  therefore,  even  as  your  Father  which  is 
in  heaven  is  perfect."  The  more  he  knew  himself 
the  son  of  God  the  more  of  a  personality  he  became, 
the  more  social  and  experienceable  his  teaching. 

That  he  did,  by  conscious  realization  of  the  divine 
principle  in  himself,  arrive  at  a  dignity  and  scope 
of  character  which  strikes  a  tremor  out  of  us  still 
at  this  distance  to  contemplate,  there  can  be  no 
reasonable  doubt;  but  equally  no  doubt  that  he 
thought  of  himself  as  distinct  and  apart  from  God- 
head. "Why  call  ye  me  good?"  he  protested, 
"there  is  but  one  good,  God." 

That  he  was  not  wholly  understood  in  this  even 
by  those  nearest  to  him  is  evident  from  the  way 
they  phrased  it,  "...  to  as  many  as  believed  on 
him  gave  he  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God.  ..." 
So  they  thought  of  it  as  something  bestowed  rather 
than  revealed;  and  of  his  offer  of  himself  and  his 
experiences  as  a  demonstration  of  his  claim  to  son- 
ship,  his  enemies  made  a  blasphemy.  "He  maketh 
himself  equal  to  God," — though  there  must  have  been 

125 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


even  less  of  this  in  his  spoken  word  than  we  find 
in  the  gospels,  colored  as  they  were  by  what  came 
to  be  thought  of  him  afterward. 

A  prolific  source  of  confusion  as  to  what  Jesus 
really  claimed  for  himself,  is  a  class  of  sayings  which 
find  a  counterpart  in  the  oracles  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  in  which  the  speaker  takes  on  the  character 
of  the  god  without  assuming  godhead  on  his  own 
account.  Among  these  are  the  sayings  so  freely 
attributed  to  him  by  John,  .  .  .  "Come  unto  me  all 
ye  that  labor.  .  .  ."  And  again,  "I  am  the  door; 
by  me  if  any  man  shall  enter  .  .  .",  where  he  left  off 
his  own  character  to  speak  with  the  voice  of  the 
Spirit. 

Once  to  every  man,  when  he  loves  greatly,  when 
he  finishes  a  great  work,  or  when  a  son  is  born, 
comes  the  moment  when  he  feels  himself  the  center 
of  incalculable  harmonies,  moving  with  the  tide  of 
things,  entitled  to  speak  with  authority.  This  is 
that  state  called  mystical  to  which  men  like  Jesus 
are  natural  inheritors,  needing  no  adventitious 
human  experience  to  keep  them  at  its  most  fructi- 
fying levels.  It  is  the  state  of  active  communion 
with  God  which  may  be  attained  by  self-abnega- 
tion, which  it  is  the  object  of  religious  fasting  to 
capture  and  hold;  that  electrical  indwelling,  impos- 
sible to  define,  but  needing  only  to  be  mentioned  to 
those  who  have  experienced  it.  This  was  that 

126 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


bridegroom  referred  to  by  Jesus  in  answer  to  the 
Pharisees,  "Can  the  children  of  the  bride-chamber 
fast  while  the  bridegroom  is  with  them?" — the  spirit 
of  true  enlightenment.  In  the  village  prayer-meet- 
ing you  will  hear  it  referred  to  as  "the  joy  of  the 
Lord,"  but  the  great  Christian  mystics  like  Santa 
Theresa  and  St.  John  of  the  Cross  have  used  always 
to  speak  of  it  as  Jesus  often  did  in  terms  of  espousal. 

To  one  who  understands  these  things  it  is  perfectly 
intelligible  that  Jesus  would  deny  the  need  of  fasting 
to  those  of  his  disciples  who  already  had  "the  bride- 
groom with  them,"  without  making  any  claim  to 
personal  preciousness. 

To  the  fact  that  the  immediate  followers  of  Jesus 
were  simple  folk,  next  to  the  earth,  so  understand- 
ing his  speeches  when  they  were  uttered,  we  may 
attribute  the  circumstance  that  no  such  claim  was 
set  up  for  him  while  he  lived.  For  this  also  is  a  folk 
way — to  dramatize  the  soul's  intimate  experience. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  of  those  utterances  in 
which  the  personality  of  the  speaker  was  lost  in  the 
character,  without  assuming  the  attributes,  of  God 
is  the  apostrophe  to  Jerusalem. 

"O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  how  often  would  I  have 
gathered  thy  children  together  .  .  .  and  ye  would 
not !"  The  passage  lacks  the  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord  " 
of  the  earlier  prophets,  but  it  has  all  their  high,  im- 
passioned quality. 

127 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


It  was  not  until  years  after  his  death,  separated 
from  the  environment  and  from  the  man's  vivifying 
personality,  these  sayings  began  to  take  on  the  char- 
acter of  announcements  of  divine  identity.  There 
is  no  evidence  that  Jesus  thought  at  all  of  his  own 
nature  and  attributes,  of  why  he  was  chosen  or 
how,  to  be  the  bearer  of  the  Word.  He  was  con- 
cerned not  at  all  about  himself,  but  greatly  for  the 
will  of  God.  If  there  was  assumption  of  any  kind 
on  his  part,  at  the  most  it  was  the  unclouded  con- 
viction that  he  knew  God  as  no  one  had  yet  known 
Him,  and  that  he  was  called  to  impart  that  knowl- 
edge to  others. 

It  was  in  some  such  frame  as  this  that  he  passed 
through  Perea  for  the  last  time  and  came  again  to 
the  borders  of  Judea. 

§ 

Of  the  unwritten  part  of  this  journey  it  is  pos- 
sible to  think  that  much  can  be  traced  in  the  life 
of  the  Christian  community  during  the  next  half- 
score  of  years.  How  many  were  with  him  on  the 
whole  journey  and  how  many  joined  him  in  the  Rift 
of  Jordan  can  only  be  conjectured,  but  he  ar- 
rived in  Jerusalem  with  a  sufficient  company  of  his 
Galilean  friends  to  give  to  their  intercourse  a  cer- 
tain definite  stamp.  Here  was  the  beginning  of 
that  strong  sense  of  community  interest,  the  shared 
bread,  the  daily  worship,  grace  before  meat, — habits 

128 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


of  living  which  characterized  the  first  proselyting 
period  of  the  new  faith;  the  public  testimony,  the 
benediction,  the  hymn-singing.  Above  all,  the  gra- 
cious kindliness,  the  cheer,  the  contained  and  quiet 
joy  which  was  shed  as  a  savor  from  early  Christian 
behavior.  Such  as  they  were  he  must  have  been— 
little  vessels  all  of  them  overfilled  at  his  fountain. 
(By  the  watercourses  of  Reuben,  great  were  the  resolves 
of  heart!) 

Here,  too,  must  have  been  established  that  ac- 
ceptance of  women  in  the  Father,  so  unequivocal 
that  all  Paul's  prejudice  could  not  afterward  con- 
trovert it;  he  admitted  them  to  argument,  he 
permitted  them  to  sit  in  privileged  places.  It  does 
not  appear  that  he  anywhere  expressed  himself  as 
opposed  to  any  of  the  current  notions  of  sex  in- 
feriority; rather  to  conduct  himself  as  if  he  had  not 
known  such  distinctions  to  exist.  He  had  not  one 
manner  for  the  virtuous  housewife  and  another  for 
the  woman  of  the  town.  He  yielded  to  the  argu- 
ment of  the  Syrophcenician  woman,  and  in  a  story 
told  by  John,  which  seems  to  be  compounded  of  a 
half-remembered  parable  and  some  items  of  actual 
incident,  he  is  shown  revealing  himself  quite  simply 
to  a  woman  at  a  wayside  well,  a  woman  of  the  de- 
spised Samaritan  sect,  thought  to  be  so  far  outside 
the  grace  of  God  as  to  be  disbarred  from  the  temple, 
but  not  beyond  the  reach  of  his  gospel, 

129 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


Not  wholly  authenticated,  but  true  enough  to  the 
situation  to  have  been  true  in  fact,  is  an  incident 
related  in  the  book  of  Apostolic  Ordinances.  There 
had  arisen,  it  appears,  in  the  primitive  church,  the 
question  of  a  separate  ministry  for  women,  for  among 
the  Jews  women  had  never  been  admitted  to  the 
highest  intimacies  of  religion.  John  was  strongly 
for  it,  urging  that  there  had  been  no  women  present 
at  the  last  supper,  whereat  Mary  was  seen  to  smile. 
But  when  Martha  called  their  attention  to  it  she 
denied  that  she  had  laughed,  "For,"  said  she,  "he 
told  us  beforehand  when  he  taught,  that  the  weak 
should  be  saved  through  the  strong."  Whether  or 
not  the  incident  occurred  as  related,  the  freedom  of 
Jesus  from  every  form  of  social  prejudice  was  evi- 
dent enough  to  pull  the  early  church  about  from  its 
Oriental  bias  toward  the  subordination  of  women, 
and  face  it  definitely  to  the  larger  liberty  of  the 
West.  Themselves  in  bondage  to  the  habit  of  their 
upbringing,  the  women  of  his  following  probably  took 
less  than  he  would  have  allowed  them;  it  is  not 
recorded  that  he  ever  refused  any  one  of  them  what 
she  asked.  He  included  them,  good  and  bad,  in  that 
democracy  of  the  spirit  which  established  a  minimum 
value  for  every  soul  of  both  sexes  and  all  classes. 

§ 

At  the  time  the  little  company  came  down  out 
of  the  high,  veiled  land  of  Moab,  all  Jewry  was 

130 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


afoot  and  astir  in  this  business  of  the  Passover.  In 
the  month  Adar  the  temple  tax  was  collected,  roads 
were  mended,  sepulchers  whitened  lest  any  pilgrim 
suffer  defilement.  From  every  village  a  devoted 
band  set  forth;  the  poor  on  their  own  feet,  the  rich 
in  litters;  Jews  of  the  dispersion;  Alexandrine  bank- 
ers riding  on  camels.  All  the  stony  lanes  were 
choked  with  bleating  lambs  for  the  Paschal  rite, 
heifers  for  sacrifice,  vendors  of  doves  moving  under 
great  pyramids  of  cages.  Caravans  went  up — goods 
of  Damascus,  Egyptian  dates,  silks  of  Arabia. 
Every  morning  found  hordes  of  market  gardeners 
with  their  donkeys  waiting  for  the  opening  of  the 
gates.  Great  loads  of  palm  branches,  of  green 
boughs  cut  from  the  jungle  along  Jordan,  went  in 
for  the  building  of  booths.  In  their  gardens  outside 
the  city  the  rich  set  up  pavilions — for  there  were 
no  gardens  within  the  holy  city,  lest  the  blown  dust  of 
manure  defile  the  temple — and  relived  from  Sab- 
bath to  Sabbath  the  years  their  fathers  spent  in  the 
Wilderness. 

Herod  went  up,  needing  greatly  the  public  con- 
sent to  his  war  with  Aretas,  and  the  countenance 
of  the  Roman  authorities;  Pontius  Pilate,  from  his 
official  seat  at  Csesarea-by-the-sea,  new  Roman 
officials  keen  for  this  strange  new  festival,  legion- 
aries for  the  policing  of  the  city.  A  million  and  a 
half — in  favored  years  two  million — pilgrims  gathered 

131 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


in  Jerusalem.  It  was  the  time  of  the  year's  resur- 
rection; the  orchards  budded,  the  tufted  grass  was 
greening,  cyclamen  came  up  in  the  clefts  of  the  rock 
with  round,  shining  leaves  like  shields  of  silver. 
Along  the  hard,  white  ways  between  the  cactus 
hedges  there  was  sound  of  psalm-singing. 

Into  all  this  pageantry  of  historical  and  religious 
observance  Jesus  came  with  his  company,  knowing 
the  way  he  was  to  walk  and  able  to  walk  in  it.  At 
the  ford  of  Jordan,  probably  the  same  at  which  he 
was  baptized,  he  was  met  by  warning  advices. 
"Depart  hence.  Herod  will  kill  thee."  To  which 
he  made  answer,  "Go  tell  that  fox  that  to-day  and 
to-morrow  I  cast  out  devils  and  do  cures,  and  the 
third  day  I  am  perfected."  A  cryptic  saying  to  his 
disciples,  but  if  we  read  "finished"  for  perfected, 
clearly  indicating  that  he  knew  his  work  so  near  an 
end  that  it  was  now  immaterial  what  Herod  should 
do  to  him.  So  with  full  courage  he  crossed  over 
Jordan  and  stopped  at  Jericho,  the  fragrant.  It  sits 
in  the  midst  of  orchards  close  under  the  bluffs  of 
Judea,  having  the  glittering  surface  of  the  Dead 
Sea  always  on  the  south  and  the  brown  river  flow- 
ing past.  When  the  wind  is  right,  blown  gusts  of 
the  temple  music  come  faintly  down  from  Jerusalem, 
fifteen  miles  away.  Here  he  spent  the  night  and 
perhaps  a  Sabbath. 

Two  incidents,  slight  in  themselves,  illuminate 

132 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


the  public  mind.  He  was  addressed  by  a  blind  man 
as  Son  of  David,  and  Zaccheus,  the  publican,  climbed 
a  tree  that  he  might  have  a  good  look  at  the  new 
prophet  in  the  midst  of  the  crowd  that  came  out  to 
meet  him.  For  the  movements  of  Jesus  were  noted; 
and  to  others  than  his  immediate  circle  had  spread 
the  hope  in  him  as  the  Messiah. 

The  road  from  Jericho  to  Jerusalem  leads  up  a 
red  gorge  and  its  winding  ridges,  a  hot,  heavy  way, 
blind,  waterless.  It  figures  chiefly  as  the  scene  of 
a  parable  which  Jesus  laid  there,  in  which  the  falling 
among  thieves  was  the  likeliest,  and  the  rescue  by 
the  good  Samaritan  the  loveliest,  that  might  have 
happened  there.  By  this  time  there  must  have 
been  a  considerable  company  in  the  train  of  the 
man  from  Nazareth,  traveling  in  a  state  of  hardly 
suppressed  excitement,  for,  says  Luke,  "They 
thought  that  the  kingdom  of  God  should  immedi- 
ately appear."  They  came  singing,  as  befitted  pil- 
grims, a  song  of  going  up,  "songs  of  degrees,"  dating 
from  the  return  from  captivity. 

/  will  lift  up  mine  eyes  unto  the  hills, 

they  sang,  seeing  the  hill  of  Zion  in  the  mind's  eye 
long  before  they  came  in  sight  of  it,  and  also 

I  was  glad  when  they  said  unto  me 
Let  us  go  into  the  house  of  the  Lord! 
Our  feet  shall  stand  within  thy  gates,  0  Jeru- 
salem! 

133 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


for  it  was  a  great  commemorative  occasion,  and  there 
were  many  in  that  company  who  had  not  yet  seen 
that  most  moving  sight  to  any  Jew,  the  holy  city. 

They  would  have  been  all  the  morning  climbing 
up  out  of  the  sweltering  Rift  to  the  cool  ridges. 
At  Bethpage,  where  the  road  to  Bethany  turns  off 
from  the  main  highway,  they  took  their  nooning. 
Just  around  the  shoulder  of  Olivet  they  would  have 
had  the  first  glimpse  of  Jerusalem.  It  burst  upon 
them,  transfigured  in  the  slant  afternoon  light,  a 
city  walled  up  to  heaven  from  the  gulfs  of  Hinnom 
and  Kidron.  First  they  saw  the  citadel,  then  the 
white  towers  of  Antonia,  the  gilded  temple  roofs,  and 
the  long  arcade  of  Solomon's  porch  wreathed  for 
the  festival  .  .  .  whither  the  tribes  go  up,  the  tribes  of 
the  Lord  unto  the  testimony  of  Israel,  to  give  thanks 
unto  the  name  of  the  Lord.  .  .  .  And,  looking  on  it, 
Jesus  wept. 

We  can  only  conclude  that  what  followed  was 
born  of  the  inspiration  of  the  moment;  it  was  part 
of  that  impassioned  cry,  "O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem, 
how  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  to- 
gether!" which  burst  from  him  with  all  the  warm 
and  patriotic  sentiment  the  sight  of  it  stirred  up, 
and  with  the  knowledge  deep  in  his  own  mind  of 
what  it  was  still  to  do  to  a  prophet  of  Nazareth. 

Perhaps  the  passage  from  Zacharia  had  just  flashed 
upon  his  mind,  "  Thy  king  shall  come  to  thee,  lowly  and 

134 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


riding  upon  an  ass.  ..."  Jerusalem  that  dreamed 
of  a  Messiah  sitting  in  the  heavens,  clothed  in  au- 
thority; Jerusalem  that  stoned  the  prophets  should 
have  a  parable  in  the  true  prophetic  manner,  after 
the  fashion  of  Isaiah,  who  walked  three  years  bare- 
foot without  his  upper  garment,  and  of  Zedekiah, 
who  bound  horns  upon  his  forehead  with  which  to 
push  against  the  Syrians.  Sending  back  to  the  vil- 
lage which  they  had  just  passed  to  borrow  an  ass 
which  he  had  seen  tied  there — for  there  were  beasts 
everywhere  to  be  hired  for  the  sight-seeing — Jesus 
came  riding  on  it  into  the  chief  city  of  the  Jews,  a 
man  of  the  masses,  travel-stained,  with  long  hair 
like  a  woman's. 

So  he  fulfilled,  for  those  who  strained  after  these 
things,  the  strained  letter  of  the  prophecy.  Viewed 
in  any  other  light  than  that  subtle  spiritual  irony 
of  which  he  was  master,  the  incident  takes  on  a  poor 
touch  of  human  futility,  and  neither  vanity  nor 
futility  had  any  place  in  him.  To  the  simple  Gali- 
leans, his  followers,  it  appealed  as  an  assumption  of 
new  dignities.  They  spread  their  garments  before 
him,  raising  a  loud  Hosanna.  From  the  temple 
porch  across  Kidron  came  an  answering  shout.  It 
was  caught  up  by  the  crowd  in  the  street,  and  many 
curious  and  devout,  who  had  listened  to  him  in 
Galilee  and  Perea,  came  pouring  out  of  the  eastern 
gate,  waving  palms  and  welcoming: 

135 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


Blessed  be  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord! 
Oh,  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord,  for  he  is  good! 

chanted  the  pilgrim  band,  and  from  the  crowd 
streaming  from  the  city  gates  came  the  antiphonal 
response : 

For  his  mercy  endurcth  for  ever! 

for  so  it  was  customary  to  receive  pilgrims  at  the 
feast  of  the  Passover.  Throughout  the  capital  it 
became  known  that  the  new  prophet  from  Nazareth 
had  arrived  with  his  following. 

Popular  excitement  must  have  died  down  very 
soon  after  the  procession  entered  by  the  Eastern 
Gate.  It  tailed  out  in  the  narrow  streets  and  lost 
itself  in  the  vast  throngs  of  the  indifferent  and  merely 
curious.  Nothing  whatever  happened.  The  dimin- 
ishing band  of  enthusiasts  made  their  way  toward 
the  temple,  packed  with  the  Jews  of  all  Nations. 
It  would  have  been  about  the  hour  of  the  evening 
sacrifice,  the  money-changers  would  have  folded  their 
tables,  the  vendors  of  doves  had  left  for  the  day, 
the  crowd  was  hushed  and  worshipful.  Jesus  and 
his  handful  of  Galileans  looked  about  on  all  the 
solemn  wonders,  and  at  evening  retired  to  the  vil- 
lage of  Bethany. 


T. lie  Lord  is  my  strength  and  song 

And  he  is  become  my  salvation. 
The  voice  of  rejoicing  and  salvation 

Is  in  the  tabernacles  of  the  righteous. 
<The  right  hand  of  the  Lord  doeth  valiantly. 

The  right  hand  of  the  Lord  is  exalted, 

The  right  hand  of  the  Lord  doeth  valiantly ', 

/  shall  not  die  but  live, 

And  declare  the  works  of  the  Lord. 
The  Lord  hath  chastened  me  sore 

But  he  hath  not  given  me  over  unto  death. 
Ofien  to  me  the  gates  of  righteousness, 

I  will  go  into  them^  I  will  give  thanks  unto  the 
Lord. 

I  will  give  thanks  unto  thee,  for  thou  hast  answered 


me, 


And  art  become  my  salvation. 
The  stone  which  the  builders  rejected 
Is  become  the  head  of  the  corner. 

This  is  the  Lord's  doing; 

It  is  marvelous  in  our  eyes. 
This  is  the  day  the  Lord  hath  made; 

^X^e  will  rejoice  and  be  glad  in  it. 
Save  now,  we  beseech  thee,  O  Lord; 

O  Lord,  we  beseech  thee,  send  now  £ros£erity. 

[Part  of  the  Hallel  sung  at  the  end  of  the  Paschal  supper.] 


VII 

/CONSIDER  the  lair  of  the  lion  of  Judah,  how 
\^S  it  is  established  on  the  prongs  of  the  great 
central  plateau,  walled  up  to  heaven.  On  Zion  is 
is  the  citadel,  Moriah  is  pieced  out  by  solid  piers 
of  masonry  to  make  room  for  the  temple.  Between 
them  the  tyropeon,  the  place  of  the  merchants,  leads 
down  to  Hinnom;  round  the  eastern  base  sweeps 
the  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat,  through  which  flows  Kid- 
ron.  Gardens  lie  thick  in  the  trough  of  Jehoshaphat 
and  Hinnom,  but  the  ravine  at  the  back  of  the  city 
is  called  Gehenna,  for  rubbish  is  thrown  there  and 
a  fire  for  ever  consumes  the  city's  slough  and  waste. 
Across  Kidron  rises  the  Mount  of  Olives,  from  which 
the  land  falls  eastward  by  terraces  to  the  valley  of 
the  shadow,  which  is  Jordan.  Always  Jerusalem 
looks  into  the  gulf,  but  never  quite  to  the  bottom 
of  it,  and  east  away  the  blue  hills  of  Moab  float  upon 
the  horizon  and  affect  the  imagination  like  the  sea. 
Northward  stretches  the  hill  country  of  Judea,  full 
of  contour  and  color.  Reasons  like  these  as  much 
as  history,  have  to  do  with  the  pride  of  Jerusalem 
and  its  fierce  resentment  of  overlordship.  Herod 

10  139 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


the  Great  being  in  part  a  Jew,  held  it  with  a  strong, 
cruel  hand;  Archelus  could  not  hold  it  at  all;  and 
Pontius  Pilate,  at  this  time  Procuator,  lost  it. 

But  before  Rome  took  her  the  worst  had  already 
happened  to  Jerusalem.  She  had  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  the  hierarchy.  Political  imposition  is  a 
yoke  upon  men's  necks,  but  the  rule  of  priests  is  a 
fetter  to  the  understanding.  When  Pilate  ordered 
the  Roman  standards  into  the  city,  standards  bear- 
ing the  image  of  the  Emperor  and  hence  an  abomi- 
nation, the  Sanhedrin  opposed  him  and  won;  when 
he  set  up  votive  shields  in  Herod's  palace  the  four 
sons  of  Herod  headed  the  protest  to  Rome;  when  he 
spent  the  temple  treasure  on  an  aqueduct  he  had  the 
whole  priestly  party  against  him;  but  when  a  man 
came  freely  speaking  his  opinion  of  priests  and  the 
conduct  of  the  temple,  they  made  of  the  Procurator 
the  instrument  of  his  destruction.  Whether  they 
fought  Pilate  or  used  him,  the  mainspring  of  action 
was  always  the  preservation  of  their  Levitical  au- 
thority. 

Probably  they  thought  they  were  right — it  is  one 
of  the  prime  necessities  of  men  in  large  numbers 
that  they  should  think  so  of  themselves — but  one 
thing  they  knew,  and  that  was  that  it  was  profitable. 
Here  we  touch  on  one  other  factor  of  the  Hebrew 
religion  which  determined  the  development  of  Chris- 
tianity as  the  soil  on  which  it  is  reared  determines 

140 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


the  harvest.  We  have  seen  how  Jesus  rooted  him- 
self in  the  reality  of  moral  principle;  all  that  follows 
goes  to  show  how  the  survival  of  his  teaching  was 
shaped  by  the  profound  Hebrew  conviction  of  the 
efficacy  of  sacrifice.  The  pagan  gave  to  his  gods 
when  there  was  need  or  when  he  felt  happy,  but 
Israel  gave  also  because  there  was  virtue  in  giving. 
He  gave  whether  God  saved  or  destroyed  him;  he 
gave  more  or  less  as  God  prospered  him — the  one 
essential  was  that  he  should  keep  on  giving.  Israel 
took  up  the  principle  of  sacrifice,  which  is  an  indeter- 
minate element  of  all  religion,  and  made  it  over 
with  the  aid  of  the  business  instinct. 

What  had  been  revealed  to  him  as  the  soul's 
supremest  need  had  become  a  system.  It  was  no 
longer  sacrifice,  but  tribute.  As  a  people,  Jews  had 
spread  over  the  known  world,  but  the  heart  of  Jewry 
still  beat  at  Jerusalem;  it  was  the  one  place  where 
offering  was  acceptable  to  the  Lord.  Wherever  a 
faithful  Jew  was  found,  from  him  to  the  temple 
trickled  a  thin  stream  of  gold.  It  came  from  Rome 
and  Egypt  and  Babylonia;  it  came  even  from  a 
prophet  in  Galilee  and  his  twelve  disciples.  That 
Jesus  very  clearly  distinguished  between  tribute 
and  sacrifice  is  evident  from  the  remark  credited  to 
him  on  the  payment  of  the  temple  tax.  Tribute  was 
a  thing  which  might  be  exacted  of  strangers,  but 
never  of  the  Children;  between  them  and  the  Father 

141 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


no  such  necessity  existed.  Nevertheless,  he  released 
one  of  his  disciples  to  go  a-fishing  to  raise  the  money, 
that  no  offense  might  be  given.  He  conformed  to 
the  custom  rather  than,  by  raising  an  issue,  delay  a 
greater  matter;  but  his  attitude  toward  the  abuses 
growing  out  of  the  system  brooked  no  compromise. 
The  abuses  were  precisely  those  which  a  few  cen- 
turies later  sprang  up  among  his  name  people;  for 
Israel  had  hit  upon  the  one  plan  by  which  a  hierarchy 
may  be  consistently  maintained,  and  Christianity, 
blindly  led  by  the  blind,  fell  into  the  same  ditch. 
Whether  it  is  called  tribute  or  modernly  disguised  as 
"systematic  giving,"  it  is  only  where  sacrifice  ceases 
to  be  the  soul's  highest  voluntary  function  and  be- 
comes a  habit,  that  the  priesthood  attains  to  tem- 
poral power.  The  constant  flow  of  tribute  into 
Jerusalem  had  begotten  a  ring  of  grafters  as  invin- 
cible and  corrupt  as  ever  controlled  a  modern  mu- 
nicipality. There  were  officials  for  collecting  tribute 
and  for  transmitting  it,  merchants  of  exchange  who 
sat  in  the  temple  porch  to  exchange  coin  of  all 
countries  for  the  temple  half-shekel,  paying  heavily 
for  the  privilege.  There  were  inspectors  of  beasts 
bought  for  sacrifice,  who  had  to  be  compounded; 
vendors  of  temple  wares — incense,  phylacteries, 
reliquaries,  such  things  as  are  sold  immemorially 
about  temples.  Altogether  the  temple  rake-off 
amounted  to  about  forty  thousand  dollars  yearly. 

142 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


All  this  was  organized  and  in  a  measure  controlled 
by  one  Annas,  ex-high  priest,  with  his  five  sons, 
priests  all,  and  Caiphas,  his  son-in-law,  high  priest 
for  the  current  occasion. 

How  much  of  this  was  known  to  Jesus  and  his 
disciples  in  Galilee  is  a  matter  of  conjecture.  "Be- 
tween affairs  at  the  capital  and  the  mass  of  the 
people  stood  the  sect  of  the  Sadducees,  adroit,  worldly, 
deriving  authority  solely  from  the  books  of  Moses, 
discrediting  the  prophets;  they  intrigued  alike  with 
Rome  and  the  priesthood,  feathering  their  own 
nests.  Not  unknown  to  Jesus,  they  drew  less  of 
his  condemnation  than  the  Pharisees  by  making 
fewer  pretensions.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  the 
Galileans  had  heard  a  rumor  of  these  things  as  vil- 
lagers hear  them,  things  which  they  felt  themselves 
knowing  to  believe  or  virtuous  in  denying.  That 
nothing  was  farther  from  their  thoughts  on  the  sec- 
ond morning,  when  they  walked  in  from  Bethany, 
can  be  easily  gathered  from  what  followed. 

Jesus  had  spent  the  night  at  the  house  around 
which  lingers  the  tradition  of  Martha,  careful  about 
many  things,  and  Mary,  who  chose  the  better  part 
in  choosing  to  hear  of  the  Kingdom.  Bethany  lies 
on  the  Jordan  side  of  Olivet,  hid  from  the  city; 
Bethpage  is  at  the  junction  on  the  Bethany  road 
with  the  great  public  highway ;  from  here  is  one  con- 
tinuous suburb  of  hamlet  and  garden  to  the  foot  of 

143 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


the  rock  from  which  the  city  soars  above  the  abyss. 
It  is  from  this  point  that  the  temple  first  engaged 
the  eye,  shining  with  the  morning.  From  pillared 
court  within  court  it  rose,  dazzling,"roofed  with  gold. 
The  smoke  of  the  morning  sacrifice  went  up;  they 
heard  the  choir  chanting.  But  within,  beyond  the 
court  of  the  Gentiles,  within  the  court  of  the  Men 
of  Israel,  which  rose  tier  by  tier  from  the  court  of 
the  Women,  beyond  the  holy  place  where  stood  the 
great  altar,  the  Holy  of  Holies  was  empty,  quite 
empty. 

This  would  have  been  Monday  by  the  most  re- 
liable chronology.  If  they  arrived  at  the  temple  in 
the  hour  after  the  morning  sacrifice  before  the 
sight-seeing  crowd  had  well  gathered,  they  would 
have  seen  the  temple  traffic  at  its  worst  and  most 
sacrilegious.  In  the  court  of  the  Gentiles,  a  wide, 
tessellated  space  inclosed  with  a  noble  Corinthian 
colonnade,  the  noise  of  the  rabble,  the  bleating  of 
sheep  brought  for  sacrifice,  must  have  struck  offen- 
sively across  the  solemn  associations  awakened  in 
the  mind  of  every  devout  Jew  on  first  entering  the 
sacred  precinct.  Across  the  open  court  rose  the 
sanctuary  from  its  terrace,  doors  and  lintels  overlaid 
with  gold  and  silver.  By  the  Gate  Beautiful  they 
went  up  into  the  court  of  the  Women,  a  handsome 
colonnaded  space  into  which  fifteen  thousand  wor- 
shipers could  be  crowded.  Here  between  the  columns 

144 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


they  found  the  table  of  the  money-changers,  little 
shops,  set  up  along  the  wall  spaces.  One  can  under- 
stand how  they  would  have  hung  together,  the 
Galileans  in  their  brown-and- white  burnooses  around 
the  tall  figure  of  their  prophet,  ignored  by  hurrying 
priests,  elbowed  by  insolent  temple  attendants, 
while  the  sense  of  what  they  saw  sank  into  them. 
From  the  language  used  by  Jesus,  when  at  last  he 
could  no  longer  keep  silent,  it  must  have  been  some 
extortion,  some  provincial  mulcted  of  his  due  ex- 
change, some  widow  overcharged  for  a  pair  of  doves, 
that  fanned  his  wrath  into  action. 

The  disturbance,  whatever  it  was,  could  hardly 
have  extended  beyond  the  sanctuary;  the  money- 
changers would  not  have  risked  a  general  riot.  At 
the  overturning  of  the  first  table  they  would  have 
gathered  up  their  moneys,  the  vendors  of  small  wares 
fled,  squealing.  After  all,  the  man  might  be  a 
prophet,  and  the  sympathy  of  the  bystanders  would 
have  certainly  been  on  his  side. 

It  is  reported  that  Jesus  drove  out  the  money- 
changers with  a  whip,  and  from  that  time  when  he 
was  in  the  temple  would  permit  none  of  his  follow- 
ing to  carry  into  the  temple  the  implement  and  sign 
of  his  trade,  as  was  the  common  practice,  upon  his 
person. 

There  is  a  ribald  song  still  extant  about  the  sons 
of  Annas,  who  had  a  bazar  within  the  sanctuary, 

145 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


which  shows  how  Jerusalem  went  with  its  tongue  in 
its  cheek  in  respect  to  the  temple  management.  A 
more  interesting  commentary  even  is  the  fact  that 
not  a  word  of  all  this  leaked  through  to  the  Roman 
authorities.  Here  was  the  most  influential  group  of 
Jerusalemities  manhandled  and  affronted  in  their 
own  temple,  and  nothing  whatever  is  heard  of  the 
police,  no  complaint  for  assault  is  lodged.  It  is  a 
commentary  on  the  utter  indefensibility  of  the 
temple  traffic,  and  the  only  tribute  paid  by  or- 
ganized Jewry  to  the  prophetic  character  of  Jesus. 
In  that  brief  period  of  hesitation  was  let  slip  the 
occasion  to  deal  with  him  as  an  ordinary  disturber 
of  public  worship.  In  spite  of  themselves  they 
were  forced  to  deal  with  him  as  a  public  character. 

Deal  with  him  they  must,  and  that  speedily. 
For  not  only  had  he  driven  out  the  traffic,  but  he 
continued  to  hang  about  the  temple,  both  that  day 
and  the  next,  supported  by  his  twelve  stalwart 
Galileans,  preaching  to  the  people  and  enforcing  by 
the  moral  weight  of  his  presence  the  embargo  on 
everything  not  consistent  with  the  traditions  of  the 
sanctuary.  And  this  while  there  were  perhaps  two 
or  three  hundred  thousand  pilgrims  in  the  city 
waiting  to  be  fleeced.  Plainly  the  man  was  a 
nuisance  and  must  be  disposed  of.  They  went 
about  it  in  a  manner  truly  Hebraic. 

The  first  movement  was  to  send  a  delegation  to 

146 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


inquire  by  what  authority  he  did  these  things,  know- 
ing that  he  had  no  rabbinical  certificates,  and  think- 
ing to  discredit  him  with  the  public,  for  Hebraism 
is  before  all  else  a  religion  of  authority.  Jesus  coun- 
tered with  another  question. 

"The  baptism  of  John,  was  it  from  heaven  or  of 
me?" 

He  had  them  there,  for  if  they  said  "Of  heaven," 
why,  then,  had  they  not  believed  it?  And  they  dared 
not  say  of  men  lest  the  multitude  who  counted  John 
a  prophet,  be  moved  against  them.  So,  neatly 
caught  between  the  clefts  of  their  own  question, 
they  withdrew  from  the  first  encounter,  and  in  the 
mean  time  Jesus  had  the  ear  of  the  people.  He 
preached  there  in  the  temple,  so  full  of  his  message 
that  he  snatched  it  from  the  very  stones  which  in 
wonder  they  showed  him — for  the  temple  had  been 
forty  years  in  building,  and  was  judged  one  of  the 
wonders  of  the  world — he  drew  from  the  widow 
casting  her  mite  into  the  box  of  the  treasury;  he 
lifted  up  his  eyes  from  Solomon's  porch  and  saw 
the  tombs  of  the  prophets  whitened  newly  for  the 
season  of  the  pilgrimage,  and  found  in  them  the  figure 
of  hypocrisy,  going  smug  without  and  inwardly 
full  of  corruption  and  dead  men's  bones. 

On  the  very  day  of  the  cleaning  of  the  temple, 
while  the  rumor  of  it  still  ran  about  the  pillars  of 
Solomon's  porch,  he  spoke  a  parable  in  which  he 

147 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


quite  explicitly  stated  that  publicans  and  harlots 
should  go  into  the  kingdom  before  the  chief  priests 
and  their  following.  He  scored  the  Pharisees 
afresh,  "devourers  of  widows'  houses,  making  long 
prayers  for  a  pretense,"  seeing  in  their  pious  hum- 
bug the  greatest  menace  to  his  teaching.  Moving 
in  imminent  peril  of  his  life,  he  moved  as  freely  as 
among  his  Galilean  hills,  preaching  in  the  temple 
daily  and  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  walking  between 
the  orchards  discoursing  of  the  kingdom.  It  was 
as  if  he  understood  that  he  was  now  at  the  end  of 
his  ministry,  and  was  concerned  merely  to  draw  out 
and  define  again  its  salient  teaching.  In  and  out  of 
a  dozen  brilliant  parables  flashed  the  doctrine  of 
the  kingdom  as  a  thing  to  be  done,  a  task  set  and 
achieved,  a  charge  to  keep.  Men  believed,  and,  be- 
lieving, acted,  and  in  doing  were  saved  .  .  .  "for  in- 
asmuch as  ye  have  done  it  unto  the  least  of  these, 
ye  have  done  it  unto  me." 

That  he  missed  no  point  of  the  situation  is  evident 
from  his  appeal  to  the  preaching  of  John,  knowing 
the  Baptist  to  have  had  a  firmer  hold  than  himself 
on  the  popular  imagination,  and  also  from  the  spirit 
with  which  he  evaded  the  next  trap  which  they  set 
for  him. 

Unable,  on  the  one  hand,  to  discredit  him  with 
the  populace,  they  sought,  on  the  other,  to  set  him 
at  odds  with  Pilate.  The  approach  was  well  cal- 

148 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


ciliated  on  the  basis  of  his  being  a  Galilean,  one  of 
that  tribe  among  whom  had  developed  the  most 
invincible  opposition  to  the  Roman  authority. 
Now,  as  one  regarding  not  the  person  of  man,  would 
he  or  would  he  not  advise  them  to  give  tribute  to 
Caesar?  But  the  answer,  "Render  unto  Caesar  the 
things  that  are  Caesar's  and  to  God  the  things  that 
are  God's,"  left  them  exactly  where  they  were  be- 
fore, if,  in  fact,  it  did  not  leave  them  a  trifle  more  dis- 
comfited, for  he  had  glanced  here  at  the  custom  of 
paying  divine  honors  to  emperors,  to  which  they 
had  been  a  shade  too  complaisant.  Then  came  the 
Sadducees  mocking,  with  a  question  trumped  up 
about  a  resurrection  from  the  dead — a  possibility 
in  which  they  did  not  in  the  least  believe — and  were 
answered  out  of  their  own  Pentateuch  in  the  words 
of  their  only  prophet,  Moses.  In  this  fashion  Jesus 
fenced  for  time,  that  he  might  drive  home  his  mes- 
sage. 

But  the  Pharisees,  when  they  heard  how  he  had 
reduced  the  Sadducees  to  silence,  plumed  themselves 
and  came  asking,  "Which  is  the  great  command- 
ment?" Only  they  themselves  knew  what  advan- 
tage they  hoped  for  in  the  answer  to  such  a  question; 
what  came  neither  they  nor  the  world  has  ever 
been  able  wholly  to  handle.  Said  Jesus: 

"Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart  and  with  all  thy  mind  and  with  all  thy  strength, 

149 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.     On  these  two  hang  all 
the  law  and  the  prophets." 

Then,  suddenly  wearied  of  question  which  had  no 
honest  query  of  the  heart  behind  it,  he  turned  on 
them  with  an  exegetical  problem  so  exactly  in  their 
own  manner  and  so  impossible  to  answer  that  it 
put  an  end  once  for  all  to  that  form  of  inquisition. 
Balked  in  wit,  the  priestly  party  turned  to  the  one 
instrument  which  they  understood  perfectly,  money. 
With  money,  somewhere  in  his  defenses  they  might 
find  a  weakness;  seeking  for  it  by  means  not  un- 
practised, they  found  Judas,  the  only  one  of  the  dis- 
ciples not  a  Galilean. 

§ 

The  compounding  of  Judas  with  the  agents  of 
Caiphas  is  connected  by  tradition  with  an  incident 
that  occurred  on  Wednesday  evening  at  the  house 
of  one  Simon,  at  Bethany,  where  the  Master  was 
being  entertained  at  supper.  No  doubt  Judas  felt 
gulled  and  disappointed.  Perhaps  he  had  friends  in 
the  city  to  wag  a  sly  finger  at  him.  Here  they  were 
at  Jerusalem,  and  no  kingdom;  here,  after  nearly 
a  year  of  following,  still  unaccepted,  dependent  on 
the  chance  hospitality  of  villagers,  they  who  should 
have  feasted  in  kings'  houses!  Thirty  pieces  of 
silver,  about  four  months'  wages,  was  not  much  to 
one  who  had  expected  to  sit  on  one  of  the  twelve 
thrones  of  Israel,  but  all  that  they  wanted  of  him 

150 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


was  that  he  should  guide  the  temple  police  to  his 
Master  when  few  or  none  were  by.  He  could  have 
had  no  idea  what  was  really  to  be  done  to  Jesus, 
for  the  Sanhedrin  itself  had  no  notion,  and  was 
hard  put  to  it,  once  they  had  taken  the  prophet,  to 
find  an  accusation  against  him  which  would  be 
acceptable  to  the  Roman  authorities.  And  surely 
if  the  man  was  the  Messiah,  when  the  police  laid 
hands  on  him  he  would  have  to  declare  himself. 
So  Judas  must  have  mused  inwardly  while  the  supper 
went  forward  and  the  uninvited,  in  the  friendly 
Eastern  fashion,  edged  up  to  catch  some  crumbs  of 
wisdom  as  they  fell  from  the  prophet. 

And  as  he  mused  came  a  woman  having  an  ala- 
baster box  of  ointment,  very  costly,  which  she  poured 
upon  the  head  of  Jesus.  Thus  it  was  done  by  the 
rich  to  guests  of  great  distinction;  but  the  thrifty 
folk  of  Bethany  were  shocked  at  it  as  an  extrava- 
gance. How  much  more  virtuous  to  have  sold  the 
ointment  and  given  the  money  to  the  poor!  This 
is  what  is  called  an  eminently  practical  suggestion; 
but  the  practicality  of  prophets  is  in  another  sort. 
"Let  her  alone,"  said  Jesus,  "the  poor  ye  have  with 
ye  always  .  .  ."  subject  to  our  poor  mechanical 
pieties.  Once  for  all  he  ranged  himself  on  the  side 
of  the  generous  risks  of  the  faith  which,  having 
risked,  finds  itself  set  aside  for  distinguished  service. 

"Lord,"  all  they  who  sat  with  him  might  have 

151 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


afterward  said,  "had  we  known  you  were  to  die, 
we  too  would  have  anointed  thee,"  but  it  is  only  of 
those  who,  knowing  no  more  than  the  rest,  act  freely 
on  the  impulse  of  the  spirit,  of  whom  these  things  are 
told  in  memorial.  Judas,  who  is  imagined  as  pro- 
testing most,  Judas  who  carried  the  bag  for  the 
twelve,  and  was  no  doubt  elected  to  that  office  be- 
cause of  his  eminent  practicality,  found  in  the  in- 
cident the  touch  of  futility  which  inclined  him  in 
the  high  priest's  favor.  He  may  even  have  thought, 
as  is  the  way  with  the  practical,  that  Jesus  was 
prone  to  be  feasted  and  fussed  over,  and  that  he 
would  spur  him  on  to  his  obvious  mission,  which 
was  to  take  possession  of  Jerusalem  and  declare  the 
kingdom. 

The  next  day  was  spent  by  the  little  company  in 
retirement  among  the  budding  orchards  of  Olivet, 
either  as  a  preparation  for  the  Passover  or  because 
they  understood  that  the  tide  of  popular  interest, 
which  had  set  in  their  favor  for  a  day  or  two,  had 
rolled  back  in  its  accustomed  channel.  They  were 
swept  under  by  it  with  scarcely  a  ripple  on  the  surface 
of  the  city's  festivity.  From  the  walled  hilltop  came 
a  murmur  like  a  hive;  the  valleys  were  tremulous 
with  the  bleating  of  two  hundred  thousand  lambs  led 
up  for  the  Paschal  rite.  High  over  it  rang  the  silver 
trumpets,  the  chanting  choirs,  the  beat  of  mystic 
dances,  all  the  mingled  sound  of  Israel  remembering 

152 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


his  God  magnificently.  Processions  choked  the 
streets,  pilgrim  parties,  Pilate  going  ceremoniously 
to  call  on  visiting  sovereignties,  and  these  calling 
on  the  governor  again.  In  the  Roman  circus  under 
the  wall  there  were  plays  and  spectacles. 

The  backward  cast  of  history  has  warped  out  of 
all  proportion  the  part  that  was  played  here  by  the 
man  from  Nazareth  and  his  twelve.  They  were,  in 
fact,  completely  submerged  in  the  great  national 
commemoration.  But  history  has  not  shown  us  a 
more  appealing  humanness  than  that  of  their  leader, 
yearning  in  the  midst  of  jeopardy  for  the  hour  of 
exalted  communion  with  the  race  that  rejected  him, 
even  though  to  make  sure  of  passing  it  with  his  dis- 
ciples he  put  forward  the  supreme  observance  by 
a  day. 

"With  what  great  desire,"  he  said,  "have  I  de- 
sired to  eat  this  Passover  with  you."  To  miss  noth- 
ing of  its  full  flavor  he  ventured  back  within  the 
sacred  precinct,  where  the  arm  of  his  enemies  reached 
with  power,  to  a  room  that  had  been  reserved  for 
him — by  tradition  in  the  house  of  Mark's  father. 
Here,  when  the  shadow  of  the  temple  reached  to 
Olivet  and  the  seven-branched  candlesticks  were  lit, 
he  repaired  with  the  twelve  to  an  upper  chamber  to 
keep  the  immemorial  festival  of  his  people. 

Of  this  no  single  authentic  detail  is  preserved  to 
us  except  what  is  common  to  the  Paschal  ritual. 

153 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


That  the  nearness  of  his  death  and  the  certainty  of 
being  betrayed  to  it  by  one  of  his  disciples  was  fore- 
most in  his  mind,  we  gather  from  what  was  recalled 
afterward,  and  also  that  it  was  not  understood  at 
the  time  by  any  of  the  disciples,  except  perhaps 
Judas.  The  words  reported  are  unequivocal,  but 
in  the  light  of  the  subsequent  behavior  of  the  dis- 
ciples we  conclude  that  none  of  the  references  to 
his  death  had  yet  the  force  of  an  announcement. 
Still  less  can  we  accept  the  personal  turn  which  was 
read  back  into  the  occasion  by  Paul  of  Tarsus.  All 
that  is  historically  admissible  is  that  at  some  point 
in  the  ritualistic  meal,  either  when  he  lifted  the 
broken  bread  .  .  .  (This  is  the  bread  of  misery  which 
our  fathers  ate  in  the  land  of  Egypt),  or  when  the  Cup 
of  Blessing  was  poured,  he  said,  "As  often  as  ye  do 
this  do  it  in  remembrance  of  me" — that  is  to  say, 
as  often  as  ye  eat  the  Passover  remember  me;  a 
natural  human  suggestion,  for  he  knew  that  he 
should  not  drink  of  the  fruit  of  the  vine  again  in 
this  fashion.  This  is  as  far  as  history  dare  go;  but 
there  is  no  reason  why  the  believing  heart  may  not 
go  farther  and  stoutly  assert  its  right  to  the  symbol 
of  a  communion  of  spirit  of  which  Jesus  himself 
felt  the  need. 

Another  incident  of  this  last  supper  has  come  down 
to  us  only  in  that  second-century  record  to  which 
reference  has  been  made,  but,  like  the  story  of  the 

154 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


woman  taken  in  adultery,  making  good  its  claim  by 
its  complete  harmony  with  what  he  knew  both  of 
the  man  Jesus  and  his  manner  of  teaching.  Some- 
where near  the  end  of  the  ritual  he  took  a  towel  and 
girt  himself,  and,  pouring  water  into  a  basin,  he 
washed  the  feet  of  his  disciples.  But,  Peter  protesting, 
he  said,  "If  I  wash  thee  not  thou  hast  no  part  with 
me."  And  the  impulsive  Peter,  linking  the  act  with 
the  symbol  of  cleansing,  offered  himself,  not  his  feet 
alone,  but  his  head,  his  hands  also.  But  the  words 
that  followed  are  explicit  enough.  "Ye  call  me 
lord  and  master  and  ye  say  well,  for  so  I  am.  If  I, 
then,  your  lord  and  master,  have  washed  your  feet, 
ye  also  ought  to  wash  one  another's  feet."  In  such 
fashion  the  man  from  Nazareth  completed  the  round 
of  his  teaching; — to  forgive,  to  love,  and  to  serve. 
"If  ye  know  these  things,  happy  are  ye  that  ye  do 
them." 

It  was  late  when  the  meal  was  over;  Judas  had 
already  gone  on  an  errand  more  than  suspected. 
The  others  had  sung  the  last  of  the  Hallel  the  sol- 
emn and  suggestive  song  of  Israel's  triumph: 

I  shall  not  die  but  live, 
he  sang,  who  was  so  near  dissolution, 

And  show  forth  the  works  of  the  Lord. 
The  hour  was  upon  them. 

"  155 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


There  is  a  hint  here,  in  the  record  of  Luke,  that 
Jesus  was  not  at  all  certain  that  he  would  not  be 
apprehended  before  he  was  out  of  the  city,  and  that 
his  motive  in  returning  to  the  suburbs  was  to  give 
to  his  companions  a  freedom  of  action  which  in 
the  unfamiliar,  crowded  streets  would  not  have  been 
possible.  It  goes  to  show,  too,  that  there  was  noth- 
ing miraculous  in  his  foreknowledge,  and  that  he 
drew  it  largely  from  his  acute  perception  of  char- 
acter rather  than  from  any  mysterious  faculty  of 
prevision.  Except  as  he  gathered  it  from  the 
cupidity  of  Judas  and  the  volatile  temperament  of 
Peter,  he  really  did  not  know  just  what  was  about 
to  come  upon  them.  For  as  much  as  he  understood 
he  prepared  them.  Every  man  was  to  take  his  own 
purse  and  his  staff,  remembering  the  time  he  had 
first  sent  them  forth  without  purse  or  scrip  or  shoes 
and  yet  lacking  nothing.  Anticipating  the  possi- 
bility of  their  having  to  cut  their  way  out  of  the 
city,  he  advised  that  any  man  having  two  coats 
should  sell  one  and  buy  a  sword.  Presently  Peter 
showed  him  two,  and  one  of  them  certainly  Peter 
carried. 

The  city  hummed  with  the  sounds  of  festivity- 
lamps  lit  in  the  upper  chambers,  family  reunions, 
hurrying  groups  of  belated  pilgrims, — as  between  two 
swords  the  little  company  passed  out  almost  under 
the  temple,  whose  great  gates  would  be  flung  open 

156 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


at  midnight,  by  the  north  gate  into  the  Valley  of 
Jehoshaphat  and  across  Kidron.  At  this  season  the 
little  creek  would  have  been  at  flood,  frothing  in  its 
stony  channel.  There  was  a  full,  watery  moon, 
and  the  smell  of  sap  from  the  orchards.  Up  a  little 
way  from  Kidron  toward  Olivet  was  a  walled  garden 
called  Gethsemane,  the  place  of  the  oil-press,  to 
which  he  had  the  owner's  leave  to  repair  for  rest 
and  privacy.  Here  the  noise  of  the  city  fell  off  and 
there  was  no  sound  louder  than  the  babble  of  the 
brook  and  the  soft  chafing  of  boughs.  Taking  James 
and  Peter  and  John  with  him,  leaving  the  others  at 
the  gate,  Jesus  advanced  further  into  the  garden, 
and  when  he  had  charged  the  three  to  pray  lest  they 
fall  into  temptation,  he  went  about  a  stone's-throw 
from  them  and,  kneeling,  addressed  himself  to  the 
Father. 

No  doubt  the  three  obeyed  the  injunction;  but 
the  prayers  of  simple  men  are  soon  done.  They 
prayed  for  their  own  souls  and  the  speedy  coming  of 
the  kingdom;  then  between  waking  and  dozing  they 
heard  Jesus  say,  "Abba,  Father,  all  things  are  possi- 
ble to  Thee;  take  away  this  cup  from  me, ..."  but, 
understanding  nothing  of  what  troubled  him,  they 
fell  presently  into  the  deep  sleep  of  workingmen. 

To  understand  anything  of  the  travail  of  soul,  the 
first  which  possessed  Jesus  since  the  Wilderness,  we 
have  to  realize  how  absolutely  voluntary  was  his  sur- 

157 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


render  to  the  occasion  which  was  even  now  seeking 
him  through  the  streets  of  Jerusalem.  There  was 
no  indictment  against  him,  and  no  offense  except 
as  he  created  it  by  his  attack  on  the  temple  traffic. 
He  was  now  outside  the  city  gates  with  the  eleven 
faithful,  each  with  his  own  scrip  at  his  side  and  his 
staff  in  his  hand,  and  with  at  least  two  swords. 
Twenty  minutes  away  in  Bethany  there  were  friendly 
folk,  and  all  about  them  the  hill  country  of  Judea,  as 
safe  to  the  hill  men  of  Galilee  as  his  mountain  is  safe 
to  the  wild  goat.  And  once  back  in  their  own 
country,  the  Sanhedrin  would  have  had  no  power 
over  them,  and,  so  long  as  they  kept  to  that  district, 
no  use  for  them.  There  Jesus  might  have  lived, 
teaching  and  healing  a  few,  and,  provided  he  com- 
mitted no  overt  act  against  the  political  organization 
or  the  business  interests  of  his  time,  esteemed  a  holy 
man  and  dying  at  last  in  the  odor  of  sanctity. 
Nothing  that  we  know  of  Jesus,  however,  permits 
us  to  think  that  he  ever  contemplated  such  an 
alternative.  Once  for  all  he  had  committed  himself 
to  the  venture  of  a  rational  faith.  He  had  prayed 
that  death  might  be  turned  aside,  but  not  that  he 
himself  should  turn  aside  from  it.  What  distin- 
guished him  from  all  other  Treaders  of  the  Way  was 
the  close  correspondence  between  his  will  and  his 
perception,  so  that  he  is  seen  to  move  forward  in 
his  appointed  path  with  none  of  the  fumblings  and 

158 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


hesitancies  of  lesser  men.  He  had  none  of  the  feel- 
ing of  moral  helplessness  which  characterizes  re- 
formers of  our  time.  It  is  too  much  even  to  say 
that  he  chose,  except  as  the  soul  is  thought  of  as 
saving  itself  alive  by  continuing  in  an  active  state 
of  choosing;  inbreathing,  outbreathing.  He  suffered 
as  a  man  the  consequences  of  his  instinctive  selection, 
but  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  suffered  indecision. 
Here  in  the  garden  his  quick  mind  outran  the  oc- 
casion and  assailed  him  with  the  bitterness  of  be- 
trayal, humiliation,  and  seeming  defeat;  the  sensi- 
tive frame  worked  out  the  suggestion  of  physical 
anguish.  So  between  waking  and  sleeping  the  three 
heard  him  say,  "nevertheless  not  what  I  will,  but 
what  Thou  wilt,"  and  observed  that  great  drops  of 
sweat  stood  upon  him.  All  unconsciously  they  laid 
upon  him  the  peculiar  burden  of  the  great,  to  know 
themselves  even  by  those  on  whose  account  they 
accept  greatness,  wholly  uncomprehended.  For 
when,  from  what  high  and  unknowable  source,  help 
had  at  last  flowed  back  to  him,  he  found  the  three 
still  sleeping. 

"Sleep  on,"  he  said,  "take  your  rest;  the  hour  is 
come."  And  a  little  later,  hearing  a  noise  at  the 
gate:  "Rise  up,  let  us  go.  Behold  he  that  be- 
tray eth  me  is  at  hand."  While  he  was  yet  speak- 
ing came  Judas  with  a  detachment  of  the  temple 
police  to  arrest  him.  They  found  him  as  by  report 

159 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


the  world  had  come  to  know  him,  contained,  courte- 
ous, ironical.  Said  he,  "Are  ye  come  out  as  against 
a  thief,  with  swords  and  staves  to  take  me?"  And 
again,  as  they  bound  him,  "I  was  daily  with  you  in 
the  temple  teaching  and  ye  took  me  not."  After 
that  silence. 

§ 

Too  much  is  always  made  of  the  defection  of  the 
twelve,  and  not  enough  of  the  fact  that  Jesus  point- 
edly turned  his  back  on  them.  In  the  flurry  of  the 
arrest  one  had  cried  out,  "  Lord,  shall  we  smite  with 
the  sword?"  and  Peter,  without  waiting  for  the  in- 
junction, drew  his  own  sword  and  sliced  the  ear  of 
the  high  priest's  servant.  But,  "Put  up  thy  sword," 
said  the  Master,  "the  cup  which  my  Father  hath 
given  me  shall  I  not  drink  it!"  Not  only  did  Jesus 
refuse  their  aid  in  this  crisis,  but  it  is  not  of  record 
that  he  referred  to  them  again,  sent  for  them,  left 
any  message.  To  them  the  Word  had  been  com- 
mitted; the  last  thing  he  could  have  wished  would 
be  to  implicate  them  in  his  disaster.  The  last  thing 
they  would  have  thought  of  would  be  to  act  in  op- 
position to  his  suggestion.  They  were  children  of 
the  earth,  whose  instinct  in  danger  is  to  be  still  and 
to  keep  on  being  still.  Not  knowing  what  was  best 
to  be  done,  they  did  nothing.  Several  of  them  had 
their  families  with  them,  whose  safety  was  their  first 
concern.  Only  Peter  followed  the  guard  afar  off,  and 

160 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


from  him  and  what  could  be  gleaned  from  the  com- 
mon report  all  our  account  of  that  night's  doings 
are  derived. 

The  key  to  the  situation  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  Jesus  was  first  taken,  not  to  the  high  priest  who 
had  ordered  his  arrest,  but  to  the  house  of  that  arch- 
grafter,  Annas.  The  difficulty  was  that  the  chief 
reason  why  Jesus  must  be  put  out  of  the  way — his 
interference  with  the  temple  traffic — nobody  dared 
mention.  Evidently  not  all  the  Sanhedrin  shared 
or  approved  of  the  buying  and  selling  within  the 
sanctuary.  Here  we  have  a  thoroughly  modern 
situation:  a  representative  body  in  the  main  well 
intentioned,  manipulated  by  a  group  within  the 
group,  whose  spring  of  action  was  illegitimate  profit. 
Some  indictment  of  Jesus  must  be  found  which  would 
not  only  appeal  to  the  majority  of  the  Sanhedrin, 
but  would  look  well  before  the  Roman  governor. 
For  the  Sanhedrin  had  for  some  time  been  deprived 
of  the  death  sentence;  the  most  they  could  do 
would  be  to  represent  Jesus  as  guilty  of  death  by 
the  Jewish  law,  and  to  persuade  Pilate  to  fix  that 
penalty.  And  none  so  competent  to  have  that 
business  in  hand  as  the  Sadducean  Annas.  Emi- 
nently safe  as  a  churchman,  not  troubled  by  par- 
ticular scruples,  wealthy,  astute,  he  was  easily  the 
man  to  get  the  better  of  the  comparatively  honest 
and  tactless  Procurator. 

161 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


What  passed  between  Jesus  and  the  ex-high  priest 
is  not  known  except  that  Annas  sent  him  bound 
to  Caiphas;  where  before  the  hastily  summoned  S;m- 
hcdriii  an  attempt  was  made  by  means  of  false  wit- 
nesses to  implicate  Jesus  in  a  charge  of  sedition. 
It  was  perhaps  not  the  best  charge  to  make  before 
a  tribunal  hating  Rome  as  the  Sanhedrists  hated  it. 
Somebody  was  found  who  had  heard  Jesus  say  some- 
thing that  could  be  tortured  into  a  threat  to  over- 
throw the  temple  in  three  days  and  build  it  again. 
This  was  plainly  anarchical,  but  even  here  there 
was  no  agreement  between  the  witnesses.  When 
all  else  failed  Caiphas  made  his  final  cast;  no  doubt 
he  had  been  instructed  thereto  by  Annas;  possibly 
he  delayed,  fearing  to  invite  in  the  innermost  circle 
of  Israel  so  stirring  a  declaration.  Made  before  the 
common  people,  it  would  have  been  answered  with 
a  cry,  but  here  in  the  heart  of  the  priestly  aristoc- 
racy it  struck  offensively  across  every  tradition  of 
caste  and  religion.  Said  Caiphas,  "Art  thou  the 
Christ,  the  son  of  the  living  God?" 

And  Jesus  answered,  "I  am." 

Whereupon  the  high  priest  rent  his  garment  as 
was  proper  to  a  high  priest  on  hearing  a  blasphemy. 

"What  need  have  ye  of  further  witnesses?"  he 
cried.  "What  think  ye?"  And  the  elders  of  Israel 
judged  him  guilty  of  death. 

The  while  this  was  in  progress  Peter  had  come 

162 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


into  the  open  court  of  the  high  priest's  palace  and 
gleaned  what  he  could  among  the  loafing  guard. 
About  cock-crow  a  maid-servant  hanging  about  for 
a  bit  of  chaff  with  the  soldiers  looked  down  from 
the  gallery  and  saw  him  warming  himself  at  the  char- 
coal brazier. 

"Thou  also  wast  with  this  man  from  Nazareth," 
she  cried  to  him,  accusingly,  but  he  denied  it  and 
in  the  very  denial  gave  evidence  against  himself, 
for  one  to  whom  the  broad  Galilean  dialect  was 
known  insisted,  "Surely  thy  speech  betrayeth 
thee."  And  Peter,  thinking  of  nothing,  perhaps,  but 
how  he  could  keep  on  hanging  about  until  he  learned 
what  was  taking  place  behind  the  high  palace  win- 
dows, began  to  curse  and  swear,  saying,  "I  know 
not  the  man."  Hardly  had  he  finished  speaking 
when  far  down  the  Tyropoeon  a  cock  crew  shrilly. 
Then  Peter  remembered  how  the  evening  before 
Jesus  had  said  to  him  in  the  very  moment  of  pro- 
testing loyalty,  "Before  the  cock  crow  thou  shalt 
deny  me,"  and  he  went  away,  weeping  bitterly. 

It  was  as  well  for  Peter  that  he  missed  what  was 
going  on  within  the  high  priest's  apartments  at  that 
moment — the  spectacle  of  the  chief  priests  of  Israel 
drawing  aside  their  garments  from  contamination 
as  they  passed,  and  spitting  in  the  face  of  a  young 
Jewish  working-man  who  stood  bound  in  the  palace 
of  Caiphas.  In  the  interval  between  this  and  the 

163 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


time  when  it  would  be  possible  to  go  to  the  Prse- 
torium  with  the  prisoner  the  guard  relieved  the  chill 
morning  watch  with  a  crude  game  played  on  the 
prophet  of  Nazareth.  Blindfolded,  they  slapped  at 
him,  saying:  "Prophesy!  Who  was  it  that  smote 
thee?" 

In  order  that  Pilate  should  rise  out  of  bed  at 
seven  in  the  morning  to  hear  who  blasphemed  the 
God  of  the  Jews  and  who  regarded  Him,  some  pres- 
sure must  be  brought  to  bear,  for  which  Annas  could 
be  trusted.  It  was  important  to  secure  both  judg- 
ment and  execution  before  the  news  of  the  arrest 
of  Jesus  had  spread  in  the  city,  but  this  was  not  the 
first  time  the  Sanhedrists  had  had  their  way  in 
spite  of  the  Procurator,  and  if  all  else  failed  there 
was  the  well-known  capacity  of  Annas  to  make 
generous  loans  to  his  friends  in  the  Prsetorium. 
Morning  found  Pilate  on  the  Judgment  seat,  but 
it  also  found  him  reluctant.  It  is  even  said,  with 
color  of  probability,  that  his  reluctance  extended  to 
the  point  of  sending  Jesus  to  Herod  whom  he  hated, 
as  being  a  Galilean  and  therefore  out  of  the  Pro- 
curator's jurisdiction.  But  Herod,  more  than  ever 
needing  the  public  countenance,  and  shy  of  prophets 
since  his  experience  with  John  the  Baptist,  after  he 
had  satisfied  a  course  curiosity  about  the  Galilean, 
sent  him  back  again. 

The  charge  brought  against  Jesus  by  the  San- 

161 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


hedrists  was  that  he  had  claimed  to  be  king  of  the 
Jews.  There  was  a  measure  of  guile  in  this,  for  on 
nothing  was  Rome  so  severe  as  on  political  offenders, 
but  it  is  also  probable  that  it  was  the  only  way  in 
which  they  could  convey  to  the  Roman  mind  what 
was  implied  in  Jesus'  announcement  that  he  was  the 
Messiah.  The  Christ  had  always  been  thought  of 
as  a  king  and  of  the  Davidic  line.  One  can  imagine, 
too,  a  certain  Jewish  reluctance  to  have  the  mys- 
teries of  their  religion  pawed  over  by  this  Roman 
hireling. 

The  claim,  if  it  had  been  made,  was  certainly 
seditious,  and  Pilate  had  the  man  scourged  for  it, 
and  again  he  would  have  let  him  go.  There  was  a 
custom  of  releasing  a  prisoner  at  this  season,  con- 
cerning which  and  its  bearing  on  the  manner  of  the 
death  of  Jesus  there  are  many  nice  problems  for 
scholars,  reaching  deep  into  ancient  Hebrew  prac- 
tice. It  is  enough  here  to  state  that  when  the 
Procurator  suggested  that  he  so  release  Jesus,  the 
rabble  who  heard  him  clamored  instead  for  one 
Barabbas,  a  direct-actionist  of  that  time,  one  who  in 
a  recent  insurrection  in  the  city  had  done  killing. 

All  this  took  place  in  the  court  of  the  governor's 
palace,  Pilate  speaking  from  the  gallery,  for  the  Jews 
would  not  go  into  the  house  of  a  heathen,  lest  they 
defile  themselves  for  the  Passover,  for  they  were 
the  leading  men  of  Jerusalem  and  an  example  to  the 

165 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


citizens.  There  were  present  the  chief  priest,  the 
accusers  of  Jesus,  and  certain  of  their  following,  to- 
gether with  such  of  the  idle  and  curious  who  could 
be  picked  up  in  the  streets  so  early  in  the  morning, 
knowing  little  of  the  affair,  but  taking  their  cue  from 
the  majority.  But  among  them  all,  probably  no 
friend  of  Jesus.  That  is  why  it  is  impossible  to  say 
which  of  the  things  written,  if  any,  really  happened; 
whether  the  governor's  wife  had  a  dream,  whether 
Pilate  washed  his  hands — a  Hebrew  custom  and  not 
likely  to  be  adopted  by  a  Roman — whether  that 
question,  What  is  truth?  was  ever  asked  and  went 
unanswered.  Out  of  all  these  obscurities  but  one 
thing  sounds  unmistakably,  it  was  the  raucous  shout 
of  the  mob  led  by  the  Sanhedrists,  crying,  "  Crucify 
him!  Crucify  him!" 

"Why,  what  evil  hath  he  done?"  asks  the  gov- 
ernor, and  again,  "Crucify  him!"  And  Pilate,  weary 
at  last  of  the  whole  affair,  delivered  him  to  be 
crucified. 

§ 

Outside  the  north  wall  of  the  city,  going  out  by 
the  Damascus  gate,  and  in  plain  sight  from  the  long- 
est road  that  goes  over  the  Bridge,  is  the  place  of 
public  execution  called  Golgotha.  Here,  about  nine 
of  the  morning  before  the  feast  of  the  Passover, 
Jesus  was  led  to  be  crucified,  and  with  him  they 
crucified  two  thieves,  for  it  was  the  custom  to  re- 

166 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


serve  one  or  two  executions  for  festival  times  as 
an  example.  What  had  happened  in  the  interim 
belonged  to  the  time  and  the  manner  of  his  trans- 
gression; allowing  for  the  formality  of  the  inquiry 
and  for  the  sending  to  Herod,  the  time  of  his  tor- 
ment must  have  been  mercifully  short.  It  was  im- 
portant to  have  Jesus  out  of  the  way  before  the 
terrified  and  astounded  followers  could  rally  to  his 
defense.  He  went  out  as  other  malefactors,  bearing 
his  cross,  attended  by  four  soldiers  and  a  few  of 
the  idle  and  curious.  In  front  of  him  was  carried 
a  board  on  which  was  written  his  offense — This  is 
the  King  of  the  Jews.  There  was  a  sting  in  this  for 
the  Sanhedrists,  over  which  Pilate  chuckled.  "Say 
not,"  they  protested,  "this  is  the  king,  but  that 
he  said  he  was  king." 

Said  the  Roman,  "It  is  written."  He  was  not  in 
a  yielding  humor. 

There  was  another  group  in  the  little  company 
that  followed  Jesus  out  of  the  Damascus  gate  deserv- 
ing some  mention — a  company  of  the  good  women  of 
Jerusalem  who  made  it  a  work  of  mercy  to  succor 
the  transgressor.  For  the  code  of  Moses  was  at  all 
points  merciful;  neither  crucifixion  nor  any  other 
lingering  death  was  allowed  under  it.  In  pursuance 
of  their  custom,  these  came  now  offering  Jesus  the 
solace  of  their  weeping.  On  the  cross  they  offered 
him  wine  to  drink  mixed  with  hyssop  for  the  dead- 

167 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


ening  of  his  pains,  and  though  he  would  not  take  it, 
it  was  the  sole  relieving  incident. 

As  the  day  wore  three  or  four  of  the  women  of 
Galilee  who  had  come  up  to  Jerusalem  in  his  com- 
pany came  stealing  by  the  hill  path  from  Olivet  and, 
standing  some  distance  off,  observed  what  was  done 
to  him.  The  soldiers  sat  on  the  ground  and  diced 
for  his  garments.  The  crowd  grew  and  thinned  and 
grew  again,  for  was  he  not  accounted  a  prophet  from 
whom  even  in  extremity  wonders  might  be  expected? 
Smoke  of  sacrifice  streamed  out  like  a  banner  over 
Mount  Moriah;  clearly  they  heard  the  sonorous 
chant  of  the  Levites  and  the  windy  trumpets.  All  up 
the  hills  of  Judea  showed  the  pale,  silvered  green  of 
olives  and  the  almond-orchards  turning  rosy.  Now 
and  then  out  of  the  crowd  some  one  reviled  him, 
saying,  "He  saved  others,  himself  he  cannot  save." 
Toward  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  one  of  his  poor, 
tortured  companions  cried  out  of  agony,  "If  thou 
be  the  Christ  save  thyself  and  us."  But  the  other, 
"Remember  me  when  thou  comest  into  thy  king- 
dom." And  "This  day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in 
Paradise,"  said  Jesus.  So  it  is  reported,  but  neither 
they  that  had  heard  nor  they  that  wrote  it  were  of 
the  prophet's  following. 

About  the  ninth  hour,  at  the  time  when  the  Paschal 
lamb  should  be  slain  as  an  expiation  for  all  Israel, 
the  strained  frame  yielded  a  moment  to  unendurable 

168 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


anguish.  He  cried  out  with  a  loud  voice,  "My  God, 
my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me!"  and  almost 
immediately  those  nearest  heard  him  say,  "I  thirst." 
But  when  one  more  compassionate  would  have  of- 
fered him  on  a  sponge  the  sour  wine  of  the  soldiers, 
there  were  others  who,  mistaking  the  Aramaic 
words  "Eloi,  Eloi"  for  the  name  of  the  prophet, 
said,  "Wait,  let  us  see  whether  Elias  will  take  him," 
for  they  were  disappointed  that  there  was  yet  no 
miracle.  And  while  they  waited,  with  a  great  cry 
he  bowed  his  head  and  died. 

Ordinarily  the  crucified  are  three  or  four  days 
dying,  but  the  approach  of  the  Passover  made  it  a 
defilement,  according  to  the  Jewish  law,  for  them 
to  be  left  hanging  there  in  extremity.  Therefore, 
about  the  time  the  shadow  of  the  temple,  stretch- 
ing eastward,  reached  to  Olivet,  the  Sanhedrists  di- 
rected that  death  should  be  hastened,  as  was  cus- 
tomary, by  the  breaking  of  the  victim's  legs.  So 
it  was  done  to  the  thieves,  but  when  they  came  to 
Jesus  it  was  not  necessary,  for  they  discovered  that 
the  spirit  had  already  left  him. 


Jesus  saitk  Unless  ye  fast  to  the  world  ye  slia.11  in 
no  wise  find  the  kingdom  of  God; 
except  ye  kee£  the  Sabbath  ye  shall 
not  see  the  Father. 

Jesus  saitk  /  stood  in  the  midst  of  the  world  and 
in  the  flesh  I  was  seen  of  them,  and  I 
found  all  men  drunken,  and  none 
found  I  athirst  among  them,  and  my 
soul  grieveth  over  the  sons  of  men,  be- 
cause they  are  Hind  in  their  heart. 

Jesus  saitn  vvherever  there  are  .  .  .  and  there  is 
one  .  .  .  alone,  I  am  with  him.  Raise 
the  stone  and  there  they  shall  find  me, 
cleave  the  wood  and  there  am  I  also. 

Jesus  saitk  .  .  .  and  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is 
within  you,  and  whosoever  shall  know 
himself  shall  find  it  ...  (strive 
therefore)  ...  to  know  yourself  and 
ye  shall  be  aware  that  ye  are  the  sons 
of  the  Father. 

Jesus  saitk  Everything  that  is  not  before  thy 
face  and  that  which  is  hidden  from 
thee  shall  le  revealed  to  thee. 
For  there  is  nothing  hidden  which 
shall  not  oe  made  manifest,  nor  buried 
which  shall  not  be  raised. 

[New  sayings  of  Jesus  from  two  papyri  discovered  at 
Oxyrhyncus.  1897-1903.     Translated  by  Grenfell  and  Hunt.] 


12 


VIII 

SOME  six  or  eight  weeks  after  these  events,  at 
the  time  when  the  feast  of  the  first  fruits  of 
the  harvest  was  kept  at  Jerusalem,  the  inhabitants 
of  that  city  were  astonished  to  find  Simon  Peter 
preaching  Jesus  boldly  as  the  Christ,  and  him  risen 
from  the  dead.  There  stood  up  with  him  on  that 
occasion  about  a  hundred  and  twenty  true  believers, 
among  whom  were  the  eleven — for  Judas,  when 
he  understood  what  he  had  done,  went  out  and 
hanged  himself — together  with  Mary,  the  mother 
of  Jesus,  and  James,  his  brother,  and  many  who 
had  been  added  to  their  company  by  reason  of  the 
rising  from  the  dead  which  Peter  declared  to  men 
of  all  nations,  Medes  and  Elamites,  dwellers  in 
Mesopotamia  and  Cappadocia  and  Egypt,  in  the 
parts  of  Lybia,  strangers  of  Rome,  Jews,  and  pros- 
elytes. This  was  the  Peter  who  had  denied  Jesus 
with  oaths  in  the  house  of  the  high  priest,  who  now 
preached  somewhat  in  this  fashion — how  that  Jesus 
had  been  approved  of  God  by  many  signs  and  won- 
ders, had  been  crucified,  dead  and  buried,  the  third 
day  he  arose  from  the  dead  and  had  appeared  to 

173 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


Mary  Magdalene,  to  the  eleven,  and  to  a  consider- 
able company  of  the  disciples.  Unlettered  as  Peter 
was,  such  was  the  faith  and  fervor  of  his  preaching 
that  on  that  same  day  about  three  thousand  con- 
verts were  added  to  the  number  of  believers. 

Something  had  certainly  happened  to  these  reti- 
cent and  easily  shaken  peasant  souls  to  raise  them 
to  the  plane  of  spiritual  conviction,  from  which 
neither  revilings  nor  martyrdom  could  dislodge 
them;  something  which  had  not  only  rallied  them 
from  the  shock  of  his  shameful  death,  but  had  clari- 
fied and  fused  the  teachings  of  Jesus  as  the  whole 
of  his  living  ministry  had  not  done.  It  had  reached 
out  beyond  the  circle  of  his  personal  following  and 
convinced  of  his  absolute  Messiahship  many  who 
had  so  far  accepted  Jesus  only  as  a  teacher.  This 
is  the  first  unequivocal  mention  that  we  have  of 
the  members  of  Jesus'  own  family  among  his  fol- 
lowers; all  that  could  be  gathered  at  Jerusalem, 
filled  with  the  holy  spirit  and  praising  God  daily. 

Unfortunately,  no  first-hand  account  of  the  events 
which  had  worked  this  astounding  revolution  has 
come  down  to  us;  but  something  can  be  made 
out  under  the  legendizing  tendency  of  the  time  at 
which  it  was  finally  committed  to  writing.  Separated 
from  the  suggestion  of  the  supernatural,  with  which 
everything  that  Jesus  did  began  very  quickly  to  be 
colored,  incidents  of  the  resurrection  show  an  ar- 

174 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


resting  consistency  with  the  occasion  and  its  back- 
ground. 

It  had  been  about  three  of  the  afternoon  when 
Jesus  bowed  his  head  upon  the  cross  with  a  great 
cry,  and  a  little  before  sunset  when,  in  compliance 
with  the  Jewish  regulation,  the  body  had  been  taken 
down.  It  had  been  given,  at  his  own  request,  into 
the  hands  of  one  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  probably  a 
member  of  the  larger  Sanhedrin,  one  of  those  who 
had  not  consented  to  the  death  of  Jesus,  and  in  any 
case  a  man  sufficiently  in  authority  to  win  such  a 
concession  from  Pilate.  It  was  now  too  close  to  the 
eve  of  the  Passover  to  admit  of  any  proper  rite  of 
burial,  so  that  the  body  was  merely  wrapped  in  a  clean 
linen  cloth  saturated  with  spices,  after  the  Hebrew 
custom,  and  laid  in  a  new  rock  tomb  not  far  from 
Golgotha.  The  women  of  Galilee,  who  had  watched 
the  crucifixion  from  afar  off,  followed  and  marked 
where  it  was  laid.  It  lay  wrapped  in  a  cloth  pun- 
gent with  aromatic  and  preservative  drugs,  with  no 
confining  coffin,  and  about  it  played  the  cool  airs 
of  the  garden.  One  must  consider  also  the  condition 
of  the  body,  how  that  it  was  not  broken,  and  that 
it  had  at  most  the  marks  of  scourging,  the  nail- 
holes  in  the  hands  and  feet,  and  possibly  a  spear- 
prick  in  the  side.  This  is  to  allow  the  utmost  to 
tradition.  Of  such  wounds  none  are  necessarily 
fatal,  and  the  spear- wound  does  not  appear  in  any 

175 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


but  the  second-century  gospel,  where  it  is  related 
with  curious  commentary  that  blood  flowed  from 
it;  but  blood  does  not  flow  from  dead  bodies.  It 
was  not  invariable  in  crucifixion  that  the  feet  were 
impaled,  but  sometimes  the  hands  only.  It  is  to  be 
remembered,also,that  the  body  which  lay  there  in  the 
rocky  tomb  was  that  of  a  well  man  of  great  hardi- 
hood, a  man  who  at  first  turn  of  the  tide  of  con- 
sciousness could  have  reached  out  and  laid  hold  on 
the  eternal  source  of  healing.  Whether  or  not  we 
are  to  believe  that  the  tide  did  so  turn  and  bore 
him  flooding  back  to  life,  there  is  much  in  the  gospel 
narrative  to  give  color  to  such  a  supposition. 

It  does  not  come  clear  to  us  as  does  the  story 
that  was  afterward  told  of  his  birth,  pure  legend, 
arched  and  sculptured  into  a  perfect  tabernacle 
wherein  is  laid  up  the  choicest  treasure  of  the  heart, 
with  kings  and  shepherds,  angel  choirs  and  lowing 
kine,  to  signify  all  that  his  coming  meant  to  hu- 
manity, but  lies  embedded,  as  the  fact  story  so  often 
does  lie,  in  all  the  crossing  and  contradictory  state- 
ments of  it.  It  is  a  story  of  a  thing  that  was  known 
to  a  scant  score  of  timid  and  illiterate  folk  sojourning 
in  a  great  city,  a  thing  kept  secret  on  its  own  ac- 
count and  whispered  cautiously  from  ear  to  ear  in 
fear  of  the  authorities.  Finally,  when  it  was  some 
time  past,  blazoned  as  a  mystery,  and  only  com- 
mitted to  writing  after  some  forty  or  fifty  years. 

176 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


Yet  still  the  story  preserves  the  form  of  veridicity. 
It  begins  on  the  morning  of  the  third  day,  as  soon  as 
it  was  light,  with  the  women  of  Galilee  stealing  forth 
from  Bethany  or  wherever  on  Olivet  their  camp 
might  be,  for  it  is  certain  that  the  disciples  were 
not  lodged  in  the  city.  They  came  by  dew- wet 
orchard  paths  beside  which  here  and  there  sprang 
the  little  low  green-veined  flowers,  called  stars  of 
Bethlehem.  High  over  them  the  temple  walls  be- 
gan to  take  the  day  upon  their  gilded  pinnacles; 
they  heard  the  clatter  at  the  gates  from  the  guard 
changing,  and  the  hordes  of  market  gardeners  with 
their  donkeys  waiting  to  be  let  in.  They  found  the 
garden  which  is  close  to  Golgotha,  and  then  along 
the  limestone  outcrop  they  followed  the  line  of 
tombs  to  the  one  that  they  had  marked.  Accounts 
differ  as  to  why  they  came,  with  what  purpose  to 
prepare  the  body  for  more  ceremonious  burial,  and 
what  happened  when  they  had  come,  but  agree  in 
this — that  they  found  the  rock-cut  tomb  empty 
and  the  grave-cloth  lying  at  one  side. 

Two  of  the  three  went  back  with  this  message  to 
the  disciples,  but  Mary  Magdalene  remained  walk- 
ing and  weeping  in  the  garden.  And  as  she  walked 
Jesus  spoke  to  her,  but  she,  thinking  it  was  the  gar- 
dener— for  by  this  time  he  had  got  some  sort  of 
garment  upon  him — said  to  him: 

"Oh,  sir,  if  you  know  where  they  have  laid  him, 

177 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


tell  me  that  I  may  take  him  away."  Then  he  called 
her  by  her  name: 

"Mary!" 

"Rabboni,"  she  answered,  instinctively,  to  the  fa- 
miliar tone,  and,  turning,  she  knew  him.  She  would 
have  kissed  his  feet,  perhaps,  or  fingered  a  fold  of  his 
garment  to  make  sure  if  it  were  really  he  or  a  vision 
of  thin  air,  but  he,  sensitive  from  his  wounding,  drew 
back. 

"Touch  me  not,"  he  said,  and  then,  reassuring, 
"I  am  not  yet  ascended  to  my  Father."  Then  he 
bade  her  go  and  say  to  the  disciples  he  would  meet 
them  in  a  place  they  knew  of  in  Galilee,  and  so  de- 
parted out  of  her  knowledge. 

One  hears  how  Peter  and  John,  when  the  women 
brought  them  word,  came  running  and  stooped 
down  and  looked  into  the  empty  tomb,  not  knowing 
what  to  make  of  it.  And  the  next  we  hear  is  that 
two  of  his  disciples,  but  not  of  the  twelve,  and  there- 
fore not  so  familiar  with  his  countenance,  walked 
from  Jerusalem  to  their  home  at  Emmaus.  This 
would  have  been  about  a  week  later,  for  so  the 
feast  of  unleavened  bread  was  prolonged  from  the 
day  of  the  Paschal  supper;  and  as  they  walked  they 
talked  of  the  things  which  had  been  done  at  the 
Passover.  Talking  thus,  they  were  accosted  by  one 
who  inquired  of  them  what  manner  of  communica- 
tion they  had  with  one  another  that  they  should  be 

178 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


so  sad.  And  one  of  them,  whose  name  was  Cleo- 
phas,  answered  him  with  an  account  of  all  that 
had  happened,  speaking  of  Jesus  as  a  prophet  whom 
the  rulers  had  condemned  to  be  crucified,  "But," 
said  Cleophas,  "we  trusted  that  it  had  been  he  that 
should  have  redeemed  Israel." 

"O  fools,"  said  the  stranger,  "and  slow  of  heart 
to  believe  all  the  prophets  have  spoken!"  Then 
he  began  to  show  them  out  of  the  scriptures  how  it 
was  necessary  that  the  Messiah  should  suffer  these 
things,  feeling  his  way  like  a  true  Hebrew  back  by 
the  law  and  the  prophets,  star-lighted  sayings  that 
shot  like  meteors  across  the  shames  and  humilia- 
tions of  the  crucifixion.  As  he  held  up  the  events 
of  the  last  few  days  to  the  familiar  scriptures,  new 
meanings  came  out  like  secret  writing  held  before  a 
flame,  and  as  he  talked  the  hearts  of  his  companions 
burned  within  them.  It  was  twilight  when  they 
approached  the  village  and  heard  the  cheerful  bark- 
ing of  the  dogs  and  the  lowing  of  cattle  in  the  byres. 
There,  as  they  drew  near  to  the  house  of  one  of  them, 
the  dusk  falling  and  the  cry  of  the  night-jar  shaken 
out  in  a  shrill  spray  of  sound  above  the  strips  of  till- 
age, they  urged  him  to  come  in  to  supper  and  a  bed 
with  them.  But  as  he  sat  at  table  he  blessed  the 
bread,  according  to  a  custom  which  was  well  known 
of  him,  and,  putting  off  the  covering  from  his  head, 
in  Hebrew  fashion  after  the  blessing,  suddenly  they 

179 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


knew  him.  When  he  perceived  that  he  was  known, 
and  that  they  spoke  neither  to  him  nor  to  one  another 
for  astonishment,  he  rose  and  slipped  away  into  the 
dusk. 

We  hear  of  him  again  when  the  disciples  are  met 
together  secretly  for  fear  of  the  authorities,  coming 
unexpectedly  into  their  midst  and  saying,  "Peace 
be  to  you,  .  .  ."  for  they  were  affrighted,  supposing 
they  had  seen  a  spirit.  "Behold  my  hands  and  my 
feet. . ."  he  said;  "handle  me  and  see,  for  a  spirit  hath 
not  flesh  and  bones."  And  while  they  wondered 
between  joy  and  amazement,  he  asked  them  what 
food  they  had;  and  when  they  had  offered  him 
broiled  fish  and  honey  in  the  honeycomb,  he  ate  be- 
fore them,  talking  the  while,  as  he  had  to  the  two 
at  Emmaus,  of  the  relation  of  prophecy  to  the  things 
which  had  happened  to  him  and  to  them  at  Jeru- 
salem. Twice  he  met  with  his  disciples  in  this 
fashion,  and  the  second  time  he  was  handled  by 
Thomas,  who,  being  absent  on  the  first  occasion,  had 
declared  that  unless  he  could  lay  his  finger  in  the 
print  of  the  nails  he  would  not  believe. 

There  seems  to  have  been  some  doubt  in  the  early 
records  whether  these  meetings  with  the  teacher 
took  place  at  Jerusalem  or  in  Galilee;  but  as  to  the 
two  meetings  yet  to  be  mentioned  there  can  be  no 
question.  To  Galilee  Jesus  would  naturally  have 
turned;  there  he  would  have  been  safest  from  his 

180 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


enemies  of  the  Sanhedrin,  and  there  in  the  lonely 
places  of  the  hills,  where  his  earliest  revelations  had 
come  to  him,  he  could  have  awaited  the  leading  of 
the  spirit.  For  though  he  could  find  a  warrant  for 
what  had  happened  to  him  in  scripture,  there  is  no 
evidence  that  Jesus  had  expected  this  second  term 
of  living,  or  that  he  knew,  except  as  it  was  the  will 
of  God,  why  it  had  come  to  him.  It  was  not,  as  he 
seems  to  have  realized  from  the  first,  that  second 
coming  of  the  apocalypse,  in  which  the  social  order 
was  to  be  renewed;  it  was  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy, 
and  for  whatever  else  it  was  he  could  wait  as  he  had 
always  waited,  without  hurrying  God,  without  guess- 
ing. That  he  should  have  gone  about  in  secret  was 
part  of  the  necessity  of  the  time  and  occasion,  part, 
too,  of  his  consistent  plan  to  disembarrass  his  dis- 
ciples as  far  as  possible  from  the  implication  of  his 
presence.  Also,  simply  as  he  had  trusted  their  love 
for  him,  he  could  hardly  at  this  juncture  trust  much 
to  their  discretion.  That  he  had  a  refuge  in  the 
mountain  of  which  nothing  was  known  to  them  ex- 
cept that  it  was  in  the  mountain,  we  have  seen,  and 
also  that  he  made  plans  at  times  without  consulting 
them.  That  he  should  have  made  his  way  back  to 
Galilee  without  their  aid  is  neither  new  nor  strange 
in  his  dealing  with  them;  in  view  of  his  extraordinary 
spiritual  resources  it  presents  few  material  problems. 
To  Galilee,  then,  he  seems  to  have  gone,  and  the 

181 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


disciples  each  to  his  own  house  and  calling.  The 
next  meeting  is  every  way  in  the  manner  to  indicate 
that  Jesus  waited  his  final  direction  in  the  hills  above 
the  lake  of  Gennesaret,  somewhat  removed  from  its 
most  populous  border.  On  a  day  some  weeks  after 
the  events  of  Jerusalem,  Peter  and  the  sons  of 
Zebedee  went  fishing,  and  with  them  in  the  boat 
were  Thomas  and  Nathaniel  of  Cana,  and  two  other 
of  the  disciples.  They  went  out  at  even,  and  all 
that  night  they  caught  nothing,  but  when  it  was 
morning,  the  fishing-smack  standing  close  in  toward 
the  shore,  they  saw  Jesus  calling  to  them  from  the 
land  and  directing  them  where  they  should  cast  in 
the  nets.  But  when  they  realized  it  was  the  Master, 
Peter  threw  his  fishing-coat  about  him,  for  he  had 
stripped  to  the  labor  of  casting,  and  waded  in  to  the 
shore.  Presently  came  the  others,  dragging  the  nets, 
to  discover  that  Jesus  had  built  a  fire,  and  laid 
fish  to  broil  on  the  coals  and  prepared  bread.  So 
they  ate  and  talked  together  as  they  must  have  done 
so  many  times  in  the  beginning  of  his  ministry, 
when  the  shared,  simple  meal  was  all  they  had  among 
them  of  the  kingdom. 

In  this  fashion  the  appearances  of  Jesus  after  his 
death  are  set  down,  not  other  than  the  appearances 
of  his  life,  except  for  here  and  there  the  legendizing 
touch.  Of  his  coming  and  going  in  secret,  mysterious 
vanishings  are  made.  Mark,  who  wrote  what  Peter 

182 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


told  him,  says  simply  that  he  appeared  while  the 
disciples  were  at  supper  and  upbraided  them  for 
their  unbelief,  but  John,  writing  in  the  second  cen- 
tury, says  that  the  door  was  shut.  Mark  says  that 
the  women  at  the  tomb  met  a  young  man  there, 
Matthew  makes  him  an  angel,  and  Luke,  writing 
hearsay  only,  makes  two  of  him  in  shining  garments. 
Such  a  development  in  forty  or  fifty  years  for  an 
event  which,  even  when  it  happened,  was  regarded  as 
supernatural,  is  less  than  might  have  been  expected. 
And  then,  suddenly,  on  an  occasion  which  all  seem 
to  have  recognized  as  final,  the  appearances  stopped. 

It  seems  that  there  had  been  a  preaching,  some- 
where in  the  hills,  and  that  more  than  the  twelve 
were  present.  Paul,  twenty  years  after  the  event, 
says  that  there  were  about  five  hundred;  others 
mention  simply  a  great  company.  After  the  dis- 
course, when  he  would  have  left  them,  those  who 
were  nearest  to  him  in  affection  went  a  part  of  the 
way,  and  when  he  had  lifted  up  his  hands  and  blessed 
them  they  saw  him  pass  from  them  toward  his 
chosen  place,  of  which  they  knew  nothing  except 
that  they  should  not  see  him  again  in  this  fashion; 
and  they  believed  that  he  had  ascended  into  heaven. 

So  passed  the  most  singular  and  appealing  char- 
acter in  all  history.  The  spring  was  at  the  flood, 
the  barley  beginning  to  head,  and  anemones  bright 
as  blood  pricked  out  the  paths.  None  saw  him  go 

183 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


but  a  handful  of  fishermen  and  villagers;  Tiberius 
he  left  upon  the  seat  of  Rome  and  the  eagles  flying 
over  Jerusalem,  not  a  tax  remitted  nor  a  dream 
realized,  not  a  word  of  all  his  revelation  written. 
Even  so  he  went  in  the  same  quiet  confidence  that 
had  sustained  him,  more  completely  at  one  with 
the  purposes  of  God  than  any  man  who  has  yet  be- 
lieved in  Him,  and,  as  we  admit,  most  completely 
justified. 

Of  what  transpired  between  Jesus  and  his  dis- 
ciples on  the  scant  occasions  when  they  were  to- 
gether after  his  crucifixion,  there  is  not  much  that 
appears  in  the  records.  Most  of  it  was  by  way  of 
turning  their  minds  back  to  the  scriptures  to  find 
in  them  confirmation  of  all  that  he  was  and  did  as 
the  true  Messiah.  This  was  important  since  it  was 
only  by  so  believing  that  they  were  able  to  induce 
a  world  to  believe  in  him.  But  two  things  which 
do  not  show  particularly  in  his  other  teachings,  stand 
out  to  confirm  the  reality  of  his  post-crucifixion 
appearance.  The  first  of  these  was  the  command  to 
go  into  all  the  world  and  preach  his  gospel,  beginning 
at  Jerusalem;  and  the  second  was  the  assurance 
that  he  would  not  leave  them  comfortless,  but  that 
they  were  to  tarry  at  Jerusalem  until  they  were 
imbued  of  the  spirit.  Nowhere  earlier  than  this  do 
we  find  the  slightest  intimation  of  what  was  ex- 
pected of  his  disciples  after  he  should  leave  them. 

184 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


That  he  had  prepared  them  to  spread  his  gospel  is 
reasonably  plain,  but  there  is  nothing  to  show  that 
he  expected  other  than  they  expected — namely, 
that  the  kingdom  should  almost  immediately  appear. 
He  expected  to  come  again  after  death  to  effect  the 
reorganization  of  society  on  Messianic  lines,  but 
there  is  no  evidence  that  his  own  reappearance  in  the 
frame  and  fashion  in  which  he  had  first  preached  was 
either  anticipated  or  understood  by  him.  He  be- 
lieved that  he  had  been  dead  and  was  alive  again.  But 
if  the  events  cloudily  foreseen  by  him  before  his  death 
had  not  fallen  out  as  the  vision  indicated,  at  no  time 
had  he  dropped  beyond  that  realization  of  the  im- 
mortal purposes  of  God  which  distinguished  him.  If 
in  the  last  hours  of  his  anguish  he  had  felt  himself 
momentarily  pushed  off  from  that  breast  which  had 
nourished  him,  lo !  he  had  fallen  into  the  lap  of  God ! 
The  currents  of  eternal  being  still  circulated  through 
him.  How  much  he  understood  of  the  relation  of 
his  death  to  the  survival  of  his  teaching  we  cannot 
even  guess;  we  can  only  know  that  the  informing 
communion  with  what  for  him  was  the  Father,  was 
not  broken.  From  it  he  drew  the  assurance,  all  that 
the  occasion  called  for,  that  enough  of  what  he  had 
had  would  be  granted  to  his  disciples.  They  were 
to  wait  for  it  at  Jerusalem.  .  .  .  "And  lo,  I  am  with 
you  alway."  This  was  the  hope  and  promise  that, 
while  it  closed  around  the  nursling  faith  to  keep 

185 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


it  warm,  closed  in  upon  the  vital  principle  of  Chris- 
tianity almost  to  the  point  of  strangulation. 

How  tender  and  personal  this  hope  was  even  at 
this  distance  we  can  measure.  It  kept  them  keyed 
to  the  expectation  of  things  unspeakable;  every  day 
might  be  the  great  day  of  the  Lord !  How  often  they 
looked  out  on  the  hill-paths  about  Bethany,  how 
many  times  his  mother  started  at  a  knock  on  the 
door  ...  for  they  had  seen  him  in  the  flesh,  and  in 
the  same  likeness  they  thought  to  see  him  again. 

§ 

Paul,  when  he  mentions  the  post-crucifixion  ap- 
pearances of  Jesus,  says  that  he  appeared  also  unto 
Peter.  Of  this  we  have  no  account,  though  such  an 
interview  is  plainly  indicated.  It  is  indicated  in  the 
complete  reinstatement  of  Peter,  who  denied  him, 
in  the  confidence  of  the  Master  and  respect  of  the 
other  disciples;  it  is  indicated  in  the  authority  which 
was  conceded  by  the  twelve  to  Peter,  even  stronger 
in  tradition  than  in  the  scripture,  where  evidence 
of  it  is  not  wanting.  More  than  all  else  it  is  in- 
dicated in  the  stout  conviction-  of  Peter  himself  that 
he  had  seen  the  Lord.  He  preached  it,  was  scourged 
and  in  prison  because  of  it,  he  died  for  it.  His  faith 
in  the  risen  Christ  made  of  him  a  heavy,  blunder- 
ing, impulsive  fisherman,  one  of  the  chief  apostles, 
preaching  acceptably  in  the  cities  of  the  known 
world,  establishing  churches  out  of  hand. 

186 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


But  of  this  interview  Peter  says  nothing,  unless 
it  be  indicated  in  that  reference  to  the  manner  of 
his  death  which  he  says  Jesus  foretold  him.  And 
John  Mark,  who  wrote  all  that  he  could  remem- 
ber of  what  Peter  told  him,  says  nothing,  or  at 
least  nothing  that  has  come  down  to  us,  for  it  is 
agreed  that  the  story  of  Mark  has  been  cut  off  at 
the  point  where  the  women  returning  from  the 
empty  tomb  were  afraid  to  speak  of  what  they  had 
seen.  It  has  been  suggested  that  the  true  ending 
of  Mark  was  replaced  by  a  later  version  because  his 
account  of  what  Peter  told  him  constituted  an  ad- 
mission of  the  phantasmal  character  of  the  appear- 
ance, a  vision,  a  hallucination. 

But  how  if  it  were  the  other  way  about,  and 
Mark's  story  was  rejected  because  it  showed  all  too 
plainly  a  man  believed  to  be  dead,  but  found  living 
and  as  a  man  disposing  his  affairs?  This  would 
have  been  the  more  likely  if  the  young  man  the 
women  found  at  the  sepulcher  had  been  the  same 
Mark,  noticed  as  standing  by  at  the  arrest  of  Jesus, 
and  fleeing  from  the  officers,  leaving  in  their  hands 
his  linen  garment,  for  tradition  makes  this  young 
man  John  Mark  and  no  other.  The  one  explanation 
is  as  possible  as  the  other;  and  by  the  time  the  book 
of  Mark  was  wrritten  it  was  not  only  believed  that 
Jesus  rose  from  the  dead,  but  many  other  things 
were  believed  about  him  which  were  no  part  of  his 

13  187 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


teachings,  but  were  owed  to  Paul  of  Tarsus.  It  was 
notable  that  during  their  lifetime  there  were  several 
things  about  which  Peter  and  Paul  had  the  greatest 
difficulty  in  coming  to  agreement.  Paul,  you  may 
be  sure,  would  have  cut  off  the  manuscript  of  Mark 
with  his  own  hand  if  he  thought  it  contradicted  in 
any  particular  that  understanding  of  the  teachings 
of  Jesus  which  he  claims  openly  to  have  received, 
not  in  the  flesh,  but  in  the  spirit. 

But  whatever  Peter  said  and  Mark  transcribed, 
there  is  no  question  as  to  what  Simon  believed  on 
the  first  occasion  of  his  preaching  Jesus  risen  from 
the  dead.  He  believed  all  that  we  have  seen  Jesus 
do  and  teach;  he  believed  also  that  he  had  seen  his 
Master  in  the  flesh,  himself  and  not  another.  He 
believed  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ,  and  that  his 
crucifixion  and  resurrection  could  be  shown  to  be 
part  of  the  authentic  prophecy.  He  believed  that 
the  death  and  raising  from  the  dead  had  been  per- 
mitted both  as  a  witness  to  the  Messianic  character 
of  Jesus,  and  as  an  assurance  to  man  of  a  life  beyond 
this  life  which  should  belong  to  those  who  believed 
in  him.  This  was  important  in  view  of  something 
else  which  he  had  come  to  believe  within  the  last 
forty  or  fifty  days — namely,  that  the  kingdom  might 
be  some  time  deferred  and  that  many  of  the  dis- 
ciples, himself  among  them,  should  die  before  it 
could  be  inaugurated.  But  with  the  certainty  that 

188 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


Jesus  was  a  Christ  of  the  dead  who  died  in  the  Lord, 
there  was  an  end  of  all  uneasiness.  The  last  word 
as  to  the  futility  of  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  had 
been  pronounced  when  they  matched  themselves 
against  his  immortal  quality. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  realize  how  important  a  part 
this  single  item  of  resurrection  from  the  dead  played 
in  the  acceptance  of  Christianity,  for  without  it, 
where  indeed  would  have  been  the  assurance  that, 
once  the  race  was  run,  the  crown  would  be  forth- 
coming? The  preparation  for  the  kingdom  pre- 
scribed by  Jesus  and  his  disciples  demanded  sac- 
rifices and  separations.  .  .  .  "For  I  am  not  come  to 
bring  peace,  but  a  sword,"  said  the  Master,  "to 
set  a  man  at  variance  against  his  father.  ..."  Why 
then  should  they  suffer  these  things  if  by  dying  be- 
fore the  great  day,  men  should  lose  their  inheritance? 
It  was  the  assurance  that  they  should  not  so  lose 
that  brought  Peter  and  the  others  back  to  Jerusalem, 
where,  they  must  have  known,  they  should  be  re- 
ceived in  something  the  same  kind  as  Jesus  had  been. 
They  came  back  secure  in  the  faith  that  nothing 
whatever  that  happened  to  them  could  separate 
them  from  the  love  of  Jesus.  And  if  it  were  a  vision 
that  had  brought  them  to  this  pitch,  then  it  were 
well  if  mankind  would  some  time  cultivate  the  faculty 
of  visions. 

They   came  back,   then,   about   a  hundred   and 

189 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


twenty  of  them, at  the  time  of  Pentecost;  more  than 
had  actually  accompanied  Jesus  on  his  first  journey  in 
the  flesh.  They  came  because  they  had  somehow  been 
convinced  that  there  were  to  be  no  more  appearances, 
and  that  at  Jerusalem  they  were  to  wait  for  a  bap- 
tism of  that  spirit  which  was  in  Jesus.  For  they  had 
said  to  him  on  one  of  the  occasions  of  their  being 
together  after  the  crucifixion,  "Lord,  wilt  thou  at 
this  time  restore  again  the  kingdom  of  Israel?" 
And  he  had  answered  them: 

"It  is  not  for  you  to  know  times  and  seasons  .  .  . 
but  ye  shall  receive  power  after  the  holy  ghost  has 
come  upon  you  .  .  .  and  ye  shall  be  witnesses  unto 
me  both  in  Jerusalem  and  in  all  Judea  and  in  Sa- 
maria and  unto  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth." 

In  pursuance  of  this  parting  instruction  they  had 
come  together,  and  finding  a  warrant  for  it  in  the 
book  of  Psalms, — for  Jesus  had  evidently  not  in- 
structed them  on  this  point, — they  chose  another  of 
their  number,  one  Matthias,  to  be  numbered  with 
the  eleven  in  the  place  of  Judas,  as  a  witness  of  the 
resurrection.  Thus  having  done  what  they  could 
to  perfect  the  form  of  organization  which  Jesus 
initiated,  they  were  all  with  one  accord  in  one  place, 
praying  and  waiting.  And  suddenly,  as  with  the 
sound  of  a  mighty  wind  from  heaven,  the  Holy 
Ghost  was  upon  the  company,  and  like  unto  a  tongue 
of  fire  it  dwelt  upon  each  of  them.  Whoever,  in 

190 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


whatever  cause,  has  received  the  illumination  of  the 
spirit  will  well  know  that  sense  of  wind  and  fire 
with  which  it  confirms  its  coming.  Descending  on 
these  plain  villagers  and  fisherfolk,  it  lifted  them  to 
the  most  stupendous  spiritual  undertaking  of  all 
history. 


way  is  hard  where  there  is  a  simple  heart. 
.Aior   7*5   there   any   wound  when   the  thoughts  are 

upright. 
Nor  is  there  any  storm  in  the  de£th  of  illuminated 

thought. 

\vhere  one  is  surrounded  on  every  side  by  beauty, 

there  is  nothing  that  is  divided: 
The  likeness  of  that  which  is  below  is  that  which 

is  above; 
For  everything  is  above;  what  is  below  is  nothing 

but  the  imagination  of  those  that  are  without 

knowledge. 

Grace  has  been  revealed  for  your  salvation. 
Believe  and  live  and  be  saved.     Hallelujah! 

[Early  Christian  hymn.    Translated  by  Rendell  Harris.] 


IX 

SUPPOSE  now  this  happened  yesterday,  that  a 
man,  speaking  as  never  man  spoke  before, 
perished  in  our  midst  at  the  instigation  of  a  few 
whose  prejudices  he  crossed  and  whose  profits  he 
interrupted?  And  suddenly  to-day  all  our  social 
organization  goes  limping  and  awry  for  want  of 
what  he  offered  us.  Should  we  have  any  difficulty 
then  in  seeing  his  work  as  Peter  and  James  and 
John,  as  Andrew  and  Philip  and  Thomas,  as  Matthew 
and  the  rest  of  them  before  they  came  under  the  in- 
fluence of  Paul,  saw  the  work  of  Jesus,  as  incomplete, 
unperfected?  Certainly  not  if  we  understood  him 
as  well  as  with  the  help  of  all  the  centuries  we  are 
able  to  understand  the  man  from  Nazareth. 

He  came  declaring  the  immanence  of  a  state  of 
society  on  which  the  will  of  God  could  be  worked 
out  freely,  as  it  could  not  in  the  state  to  which  he 
came,  and  he  went  still  declaring  it  unestablished  and 
confident  that  he  should  come  again  and  heal  the 
aching  time.  Some  color  his  words  must  have  lent 
to  the  belief  that  he  should  come  with  apocalyptic 
terrors  and  suddenness,  for  in  the  beginning  there 

195 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


is  no  doubt  that  he  thought  of  the  world  as  being 
healed  as  he  healed  lepers,  at  a  stroke.  Later  he 
spoke  of  the  growth  of  the  new  order  as  mysterious 
as  the  growth  of  a  seed  in  the  ground  and  as  natural. 
".  .  .  First  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  after  that  the 
full  corn  in  the  ear."  But  however  he  spoke  of  it, 
the  conviction  was  never  far  from  his  mind  that  love 
could  not  rule  in  Israel  nor  heaven  be  wholly  come 
until  great  changes  should  be  effected  in  the  social 
organization.  Of  this  the  disciples  were  as  con- 
vinced as  we  could  be,  and  they  lived  not  as  those 
to  whom  the  kingdom  had  come,  but  ad  interim, 
until  the  day  of  its  appearing.  For  all  their  en- 
lightenment they  took  the  same  attitude  toward 
the  second  coming  that  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
took  toward  the  first.  They  looked  for  it  in  the 
heavens  instead  of,  as  Jesus  himself  came,  springing 
lowly  from  the  earth. 

But  if  Jesus  were  to  come  to-morrow — or  had 
already  come  in  Hyde  Park  or  Rutgers  Square — as 
simply  and  in  much  the  same  fashion  as  he  came  to 
Capernaum — (Even  so,  Lord  Jesus,  come  quickly!) — 
and  the  constitution  of  the  new  social  order  were 
springing  as  a  mustard-seed  in  our  midst,  by  what 
signs  should  we  know  it? 

First  of  all,  by  its  being  established  on  the  faith 
in  Something  Without  Us;  God,  the  Divine  Mind, 
the  Eternal  Purpose,  of  the  nature  of  which  men  are 

196 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


partakers  as  the  son  partakes  of  the  father;  and  on 
the  faith  in  Life  as  a  progress  toward  the  fulfilment 
of  that  purpose,  proceeding  best  when  most  in- 
telligently in  touch  with  God  the  Father.  This  is 
the  root  and  branch  of  that  mind  which  was  in 
Jesus,  which  must  be  dug  deep  into  the  social  con- 
sciousness; and  by  no  means  is  to  be  attained  by 
plucking  here  and  there  a  preferred  saying  from  a 
casual  bough.  "Love  your  neighbor  as  yourself," 
he  said;  but  in  no  skopkeeping  fashion,  as  much  as 
yourself,  with  equal  measure,  but  as  being  yourself, 
part  of  the  undivided  fabric  of  humanity.  But  be- 
fore he  said  "love  your  neighbor,"  he  had  said: 
"Love  God  with  all  your  soul  and  with  all  your 
mind  and  with  all  your  strength";  submit  yourself 
wholly  to  the  eternal  Purpose  unfolding  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  men  and  discernible  in  the  open  face 
of  history.  Not  only  through  the  intelligence,  per- 
ceiving that  by  the  well  or  ill  being  of  a  particular 
class  all  society  is  affected,  but  with  a  live  throbbing, 
in  a  state  of  active  sentience. 

That  Jesus  thought  of  this  state  of  social  aware- 
ness as  costing  something  to  maintain,  is  plain  enough, 
but  also  he  thought  of  it  as  important  to  maintain 
at  any  cost.  "If  thine  eye  offend  thee,  pluck  it 
out  .  .  .  and  if  thy  right  hand  offend  thee  cut  it  off 
and  cast  it  from  thee."  For  with  Jesus  good  and 
evil  were  not  thought  of  as  being  constituted  in  the 

197 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


general  opinion,  nor  by  conformity  with  the  rules 
of  any  institution,  nor  even  with  a  previous  revela- 
tion, but  only  as  they  furthered  or  hindered  that 
harmonious  interrelation  of  God  and  Man  which  is 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Greeds  of  money  and  of 
the  flesh,  pride,  anger,  and  the  natural  affections  were 
to  be  cut  off  when  and  because  they  were  impeding, 
when  and  because  they  stopped  the  individual  from 
putting  his  particular  case  to  the  question  of  the 
whole;  not  as  standing  apart,  wise  and  condescend- 
ing, but  as  partaking  of  its  wholeness.  There  is  no 
single  rule  of  living  delivered  by  Jesus  which  can- 
not very  shortly  be  shown  to  take  its  validity  from 
the  extent  to  which  the  item  of  conduct  under  con- 
sideration capacitates  or  incapacitates  man  for  har- 
monious social  activity.  What  he  taught,  what  he 
desired  for  himself  and  his  disciples,  was  a  state  of 
complete  mobilization. 

And  if  you  say  that  this  is  not  to  be  attained  ex- 
cept by  the  practice  of  those  phases  of  Christianity 
which  are  called  mystical,  let  us  understand  once  for 
all  that  Jesus  came  teaching,  more  than  any  other 
man,  that  the  mystical  is  the  practical.  All  those 
high  states  which  had  been  the  exclusive  privilege 
of  saints  and  prophets  he  made  part  of  the  common 
use  and  possession.  Mind,  Spirit,  whatever  it  is 
which  flows  between  God  and  man  and  between  man 
and  his  brother,  he  constituted  the  daily  instrument, 

198 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


accessible  alike  to  learned  and  unlearned.  God  is  as 
free  as  air,  and  heaven  as  close  at  hand  in  a  fishing- 
boat  as  in  Jerusalem.  He  did  a  healing  in  the 
course  of  an  afternoon  call  and  forgave  sins  between 
the  roast  and  the  dessert.  He  made  no  more  of  a 
mystery  of  the  stupendous  forces  of  spiritual  re- 
generation than  of  the  springing  of  wheat  in  the 
field.  He  drew — though  we  have  not  yet  accepted 
it  at  his  hands — all  the  manifestations  of  the  super- 
natural into  the  field  of  the  natural.  "Do  me  a 
miracle,"  said  the  fat  Herod,  when  Jesus  had  been 
brought  before  him  bound  from  Pilate,  but  Jesus 
did  no  miracles,  nothing  which  he  did  not  openly 
declare  and  we  now  know  to  be  commonly  possible  . . . 
the  fulfilment  of  law.  We  are  ourselves  responsible 
for  the  hocus-pocus  with  which  we  have  smothered 
those  operations  of  the  spirit  which  Jesus  recom- 
mended as  a  means  of  obtaining  the  necessary 
ethical  efficiency.  We  have  used  his  name  instead 
of  his  power,  and  queered  the  whole  vocabulary  of 
spiritual  vitality  without  being  able  to  rid  ourselves 
of  the  least  of  its  realities.  We  speak  of  personal 
prayer  in  the  phrases  of  auto-suggestion  and  the 
work  of  healing  in  the  jargon  of  therapeutics,  and 
pay  a  handsome  sum  to  confess  pur  sins  to  a  psycho- 
analyst who  will  blush  to  confess  them  freely  to 
God. 

It  is  for  reasons  like  this  that  we  remain,  in  an  age 

199 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


of  great  enlightenment,  in  a  state  of  immobility. 
The  Spirit  is  still  operative  in  the  world,  clarifying, 
revealing.  Luthers  still  arise,  and  Lincolns,  Joan 
of  Arc  arose,  Jane  Addams  arises.  Many  sincere 
souls  offer  us  the  true  vision.  The  brotherhood  of 
man  is  better  understood  and  more  widely  applied 
than  it  was  in  the  time  of  Jesus,  who  thought  first 
of  Israel  and  then  of  the  little  dogs  under  the  table. 
Things  are  known  and  approved  for  the  betterment 
of  nations  so  that  none  dare  deny  them.  But  no 
mobilization  of  society  can  be  effected  toward  the 
establishment  of  the  kingdom,  except  in  some  man- 
ner by  the  use  of  the  same  means  that  Jesus  prac- 
tised. At  least,  nobody  has  yet  done  it. 

For  two  thousand  years  we  have  launched  our- 
selves on  a  really  magnificent  scale  on  every  con- 
ceivable experiment  for  sustaining  the  atmosphere 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  without  its  reality,  only  to 
find  that  there  simply  won't  any  of  them  work. 
We  are  at  the  end  of  all  our  shifts  for  creating  heaven 
on  earth  by  sleight  of  spirit.  Puritanism  and  mys- 
ticism alike  have  been  but  so  many  turns  of  the 
screw  in  directions  which  effect  nothing  toward  the 
ultimate  achievement.  Communism  won't  do  it, 
nor  voluntary  poverty,  and  charity  has  come  to  be 
looked  upon  as  a  positive  deterrent.  We  have 
prophesied  in  his  name  and  in  his  name  cast  out 
devils  of  graft  and  corruption,  and  they  have  re- 

200 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


turned,  bringing  seven  others.  We  say,  Lo  here! 
and,  Lo  there !  and  we  have  not  yet  learned  that  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  in  the  midst  of  us. 

§_ 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  up  to  us.  It  consists 
very  simply  in  casting  ourselves,  hand  linked  in 
hand,  on  the  bosom  of  the  eternal  purpose,  and  not 
with  psalm-saying  and  long  countenance,  but  in  a 
spirit  of  high  adventure.  Said  Jesus,  "Be  of  good 
cheer,  I'm  with  you!"  So  also  all  the  great  souls 
calling  across  the  ages. 

This  is  the  meaning  of  all  the  work  that  Jesus  did 
to  free  his  people  of  the  need  to  do  things  because 
they  had  been  a  long  time  doing  them.  They  did 
not  always  accept  such  freedom,  but  remained  as  an 
ox  standing  in  the  stall  after  the  halter  is  loosed 
which  bound  him;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  he 
meant  to  show  them  that  the  only  legitimate  excuse 
for  anybody  doing  anything  is  that  the  Eternal 
Purpose  is  served  by  it.  In  such  service  lies  freedom 
from  tradition.  Likewise  in  the  operation  of  the 
spirit  lies  release  from  the  fret  of  illness,  from  the 
sense  of  lack  and  unfriendedness.  Here  and  now  and 
not  in  some  distant  fruit  of  indirect  political  action 
are  the  eternal  verities.  "And  if  they  shall  say  unto 
you,  he  is  in  the  desert,  go  not  forth:  behold  he  is  in  the 
secret  chamber,  believe  it  not."  .  .  .  "For  where  two  or 
three  are  met  together  .  .  .  there  will  I  be." 

201 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


The  predicament  of  society  has  been  to  express  in 
terms  of  the  more  than  two  or  three,  the  clear  call 
of  Jesus  to  essential  use  as  against  the  arbitrary 
laws  of  social  exigency.  For  men  in  nations  must  live 
in  some  degree  by  forms,  and  until  this  present  the 
followers  of  Jesus  have  not  been  able  to  deduce 
from  his  personal  teaching  the  precise  frame  of 
economic  or  political  organization  conformable  with 
the  kingdom.  There  wants  still  a  prophet  to  cut 
through  all  the  dead  and  dying  traditions  of  social 
living  as  Jesus  pruned  the  Levitical  formality  of 
Hebraism.  Lacking  such  a  one,  we  do  what  we 
can  with  the  pattern  in  hand. 

It  must  appear  very  early  that  to  the  people 
sincerely  bent  on  producing  a  society  in  which  the 
will  of  God  is  manifest,  the  particular  political  form 
is  of  the  least  importance.  There  could  not  be  very 
material  differences  between  the  procedures  of  a 
Christian  king  and  a  Christian  president;  but 
monarchy  or  republic,  the  indispensable  mark  of 
Christian  vitality  is  that  the  state  should  be  fluent, 
able  to  move  readily  like  a  growing  thing  in  the  di- 
rection from  which  the  light  cometh.  Stated  in 
terms  of  the  social  mass,  the  promise  of  Jesus  that 
with  God  all  things  are  possible  means  no  more  or 
less  than  that  so  moving  in  harmony  with  the  eter- 
nal purpose  we  arrive  at  undreamed-of  possibilities. 

No  political  propaganda  then,  which  accepts  a  limi- 

202 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


tation  for  the  race,  or  looks  forward  to  any  shape 
of  social  fixity  can  nominate  itself  Christian.  The 
Purpose,  turning  like  a  mill-wheel  in  the  stream, 
works  up  every  wave  of  it,  flashing  the  last  least 
drop  in  the  sun. 

The  maintenance  of  such  a  mobile  state  is  by  no 
means  so  difficult  as  it  appears,  provided  that  the 
place  of  individuals  in  the  state  be  established  on 
grounds  clearly  defined  by  Jesus  whenever  in  his 
ministry  the  subject  came  to  his  attention.  It  did 
so  come  on  more  than  one  occasion,  and  seems  to 
have  lain  close  to  the  minds  of  his  disciples  all  the 
way  from  Csesarea-Philippi  to  Jerusalem.  Who 
should  be  first  in  the  kingdom,  who  sit  in  the  chief 
seats?  This  was  the  question,  and  the  answer  was 
always  the  same  and  unequivocal — "He  that  is 
greatest  among  you,  let  him  be  the  servant  of 
all." 

Now  the  one  thing  next  to  tradition  which  tends 
to  fixity  of  political  forms  is  privilege;  privilege  of 
lands  and  waters,  privilege  of  first  fruits  and  spoils  of 
war,  privilege  of  place  and  profit.  For  these  men 
fight  and  intrigue,  making  kings  and  unmaking  them. 
But  Service  goes  by  capacity;  it  may  neither  be 
schemed  for  nor  inherited.  It  arises  in  unexpected 
places,  a  carpenter's  shop,  a  rail-splitter's  cabin, 
and  no  man  may  so  much  as  pass  it  on  even  to  his 
son.  Although  service  itself  be  reckoned  a  supreme 

14  203 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


privilege  and  guarded  jealously,  it  at  least  cannot 
be  farmed.  As  the  summer  lightning  cometh  out  of 
the  east  and  shineth  unto  the  west,  so  are  the  gifts 
by  which  society  is  served.  In  a  state,  then,  whose 
chief  citizens  are  accounted  those  who  serve  most, 
there  cannot  be  even  a  serving  class,  and  fluency 
is  maintained  not  by  a  series  of  head-on  collisions 
with  established  privilege,  but  by  pushing  it  aside 
as  the  tip  of  the  growing  plant  pushes  the  sod.  For 
the  Christian  state  is  no  longer  to  be  thought  of  as 
a  system  of  inhibitions  and  prohibitions,  but  a  living 
affirmation.  Before  all  else  it  must  needs  be  "a  go- 
ing concern." 

From  his  handling  of  his  disciples,  from  many 
parables,  it  is  evident  that  Jesus  never  contemplated 
a  society  of  mechanical  equalities.  But  so  far  as  he 
thought  of  rank  and  order  he  thought  of  them  as 
arising  from  the  natural  endowment  of  men,  and  of 
men  estimated  in  heaven  as  they  served  heaven  and 
not  themselves.  But  even  as  he  made  service  the 
criterion  of  worth  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  so  he  would 
have  certainly  decided  against  any  economic  device 
which  would  have  straitened  the  individual  capa- 
city for  serving.  No  procedure,  whether  it  be  an  ill- 
nourished  youth  or  an  insufficient  wage,  which  leaves 
men  lessened  of  their  normal  worth,  can  be  thought 
of  as  consistent  with  a  Christian  state.  Loving 
God  with  all  your  soul  and  all  your  mind  and  all 

204 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


your  strength  was  the  Nazarene's  way  of  putting 
our  modern  plea  for  efficiency  in  social  service. 

At  first  glance  it  would  seem  that  he  thought  not 
at  all  of  goods  and  their  distribution,  and,  if  he 
thought  of  them,  left  no  witness.  We  have  seen  how 
the  simple  communism  of  the  first  church  at  Jeru- 
salem grew  rather  out  of  the  teaching  of  John  the 
Baptist  than  of  Jesus,  and  was  not  enjoined  by  them 
on  other  churches.  It  was  like  the  common  purse 
of  the  twelve  on  their  pilgrimages,  the  outgrowth  of 
a  temporary  common  objective.  On  the  night  of 
the  Passover,  knowing  their  interests  about  to  be 
scattered,  Jesus  bade  each  man  take  his  own,  and 
later  we  find  them  again  working  their  own  boats 
on  Gennesaret.  Groping  deeper,  however,  into  the 
groundwork  of  his  doctrine,  we  may  without  too 
much  hesitancy  strike  out  the  main  lines  of  a  world 
organization  harmonious  with  whatever  else  he 
taught  in  other  departments  of  living. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  his  sense  of  the  brother- 
hood of  man  and  sonship  to  the  Father  went  some- 
what deeper  than  our  biological  appreciation  of  kin- 
ship in  the  human  family.  He  thought  of  us  as 
"abiding"  in  it,  inalienable,  no  more  able  to  fall 
out  of  it  than  we  can  fall  off  the  earth.  Sin  and  sick- 
ness were  schisms  which  temporarily  discomfited 
us,  but  could  in  no  wise  nullify  the  kinship.  Judas 
he  received  even  after  he  had  been  sold  by  him.  All 

205 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


his  handlings  of  the  sick  and  the  sinning  were  alike, 
inasmuch  as  they  made  for  wholeness,  unifying  and 
re-establishing  the  relation.  In  a  Christian  state 
there  could  be  no  such  outcastings  as  we  make  of 
the  criminal  and  the  non-conformist.  Our  brother, 
sick  of  sensuality  or  of  fever,  of  money  lust  or  ma- 
laria, is  still  our  brother,  and  so  to  be  dealt  with. 
Thinking  always  of  men  as  children  of  one  father, 
it  is  probable  that  Jesus  would  have  thought  of  our 
relation  to  the  earth  as  beings  something  more  inti- 
mate than  mere  possessiveness.  Certainly  he  would 
have  conceived  that  the  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the 
fullness  thereof  in  a  sense  more  imperative  than  our 
poetic  appreciation  makes  it  so.  All  early  Hebrew 
law  exhibited  this  profounder  relation,  and  at- 
tempted to  express  it  in  ordinances,  many  of  which 
were  still  in  force  in  his  time.  The  Pharisaical  f  ussi- 
ness  which  made  it  a  Sabbath-breaking  for  Jesus 
and  the  twelve  to  thresh  out  the  ripe  grain  between 
thumb  and  palm,  did  not  so  much  as  question  their 
right  to  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the  field  and  the  orchard 
through  which  their  path  lead.  The  certainty  lying 
deep  in  Israel  that  somehow  the  last  ears  must  not 
be  gleaned,  the  last  cluster  gathered,  nor  the  ox 
muzzled  in  treading  out  the  corn,  was  it  not  some- 
how the  far-derived  root  from  which  sprang  this 
new  revelation  of  the  Fatherliness  of  God?  One 
law  they  had  which  expresses  their  sense  of  the  pro- 

206 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


cesses  of  organized  society  as  a  progress  away  from 
the  indispensable  relation.  It  was  the  law  of  the 
Sabbath  of  the  land.  Six  years  did  they  plow  the 
field  and  prune  the  vineyard  and  gather  the  fruit 
thereof,  but  the  seventh  was  a  year  of  rest  for  the 
land.  And  after  seven-sevens  of  Sabbaths,  in  the 
day  of  atonement  a  trumpet  sounded  to  hallow  the 
fiftieth  year  and  to  proclaim  liberty  throughout  all 
the  land  unto  the  inhabitants  thereof.  And  in  this 
fiftieth  year  of  jubilee  they  returned  every  man  to 
his  possession;  and  only  according  to  the  number 
of  years  from  the  jubilee  could  the  land  be  bought 
or  sold,  for  The  land  shall  not  be  sold  forever,  for  the 
land  is  mine: . . .  And  every  one  who  in  that  year  had 
come  into  bondage  because  of  poverty  should  de- 
part from  his  bondage  and  return  unto  his  own. 
For  even  man  was  not  permitted  to  be  sold  away 
forever  from  God.  So  through  a  multiplicity  of 
carefully  devised  provisions  Israel  attempted  from 
time  to  time  to  restore  man  and  the  land  to  their 
normal  relation. 

This  was  a  part  of  that  law  which  Jesus  said  he 
had  come  to  fulfil;  not  merely  to  obey  nor  yet 
meticulously  observe,  but  to  exemplify  in  its  pro- 
foundest  implications.  It  is  impossible  not  to  think 
that,  had  the  man  from  Nazareth  directly  turned  his 
attention  to  the  re-establishment  of  a  mode  of 
social  living,  his  first  effort  would  have  been  to 

207 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


demonstrate  the  brotherhood  of  man  in  terms  of  his 
inheritance.  It  would  have  been  consistent  at  every 
point  for  him  to  have  denied  permanent  and  exclu- 
sive possessorship  in  the  property  of  the  Father.  He 
would  have  justified  it,  as  did  Israel,  out  of  experi- 
ence, and  the  faith  that  nothing  which  is  in  harmony 
with  the  natural  constitution  of  society  can  work 
in  any  way  other  than  toward  its  betterment. 

Such  a  handling  of  land  and  natural  resources  is 
undoubtedly  implied  in  the  completed  Hebrew 
economy  to  which  Jesus  not  infrequently  referred 
his  followers  on  points  which  did  not  come  within 
the  immediate  scope  of  his  teaching. 

Deeper  still  in  his  doctrine  of  service  as  the  cri- 
terion of  citizenship  in  the  kingdom,  lies  the  unwind- 
ing clue  to  all  that  intricate  web  of  credit  and  finance 
within  which  our  modern  civilization  flutters  to  its 
death.  We  miss  it  only  by  persisting  in  the  medieval 
notion  that  his  repeated  warnings  against  the  obses- 
sions of  property  constituted  an  embargo  on  the  use 
and  enjoyment  of  Things.  Himself  took  pleasure 
in  feasts  and  good  wine,  perfume  and  ointment  for 
the  head,  clothes  as  good  as  he  could  afford — did 
not  the  feed  and  over-fed  guards  of  the  Prsetorium 
dice  for  them? 

He  seems,  however,  to  have  thought  of  these 
things  as  surrendered  to  the  Purpose  and  so  passing 
from  hand  to  hand,  not  necessarily  by  the  ugly  ma- 

208 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


terial  means  of  acquirement,  but  in  answer  to  some 
profounder  demand  of  the  Spirit.  Obliquity  lies 
not  on  him  who  takes  pleasure  in  them  as  they  pass, 
but  on  that  man  who  diverts  them  to  personal  ends 
and  renders  them  inoperative  by  ownership.  In  a 
society  wholly  committed  to  the  fulfilment  of  the 
Purpose,  where  houses  and  lands  are  esteemed  only 
for  their  capacity  to  increase  the  individual  power 
to  serve,  goods  would  circulate  freely  and  the  ac- 
cumulation of  them  become  as  burdensome  as  their 
lack  is  now  felt  to  be.  I  can  make  no  less  than  this 
of  his  "Take  no  thought,  saying,  What  shall  we 
eat  .  .  .  wherewithal  shall  we  be  clothed."  A  so- 
ciety spiritually  organized  by  a  sense  of  its  unity 
with  God,  distribution  of  wealth  would  be  accom- 
plished in  somewhat  the  same  fashion  as  the  body 
assigns  its  proportionate  nutriment,  saying  This  to  the 
bone,  that  to  the  blood,  that  the  social  body  remain 
sound  and  competent. 

We  are  still  a  long  way  from  any  frame  of  society 
which  would  enable  us  to  verify  this  teaching  by 
experiment,  but  the  first  unavoidable  step  in  the  di- 
rection of  Christian  finance  would  be  to  administer 
the  entire  system  of  credit  and  banking  not  in  the 
interests  of  owners  as  now,  but  in  the  interests  of 
those  that  serve.  It  needs  but  to  reorganize  our 
social  reactions  around  the  question,  What  can  you 
do?  rather  than  What  have  you  got?  to  dissipate 

209 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


our  most  vexed  economic  problems  as  the  mere 
froth  and  churning  of  a  system  not  spiritually  or- 
ganized. 

If  this  is  not  so  much  of  a  practical  direction  as 
some  of  us  would  wish,  it  is  at  least  more  than  has 
been  yet  accomplished.  If  it  does  not  immediately 
produce  the  kingdom,  it  bears  out  the  good  half  of 
the  announcement  that  it  is  "at  hand,"  lies  in  its 
simplicity  and  in  the  immediacy  of  the  instrument, 
"  in  the  midst  of  us."  It  establishes  the  social  revo- 
lution not  as  a  thing  to  be  accomplished,  but  as  a 
thing  experienced. 

The  teaching  of  Jesus  which  is  most  in  men's 
mouths  to-day  is  the  brotherhood  of  man,  but  the 
one  most  necessary  to  any  realization  of  it  in  terms 
of  human  organization  is  that  one  which  burst  upon 
him  at  the  ford  of  Jordan  with  the  effect  of  the 
heavens  being  opened.  .  .  .  This  is  my  beloved  son  in 
whom  I  am  well  pleased  .  .  .  the  sense  of  ourselves 
harmoniously  related  to  the  Purpose  and  important 
to  it,  used  by  it.  In  our  day  we  have  stretched  out 
our  hand  to  man  our  brother,  but  to  man  as  a  spirit- 
ual orphan,  unfathered.  And  we  know  no  more  what 
to  do  with  the  other  hand  than  to  wave  a  red  flag 
with  it  or  to  go  through  his  pockets,  according  to 
our  several  dispositions.  It  is  only  when  we  have 
clasped  God  on  the  other  side  that  the  currents  of 

eternal  possibility  circulate  through  us.     It  was  in 

210 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


such  a  vital  connection  that  the  whole  power  and 
personality  of  Jesus  was  suspended,  as  the  stars  are 
hung  in  the  windless  spaces.  Such  a  revelation 
flashed  upon  Peter  and  James  and  John  in  the  hour 
when  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  burned  for  them  be- 
tween the  two  candles  of  the  law  and  the  prophets. 
It  is  the  tree  from  which  brotherhood  proceeds  by  a 
thousand  fruiting  branches. 

For  none  of  these  things  are  so  because  Jesus 
taught  them.  Rather  the  whole  hope  of  ethical 
reorganization  depends  on  our  being  able  to  be  sure 
that  he  taught  such  things  because,  more  than  any 
man  else,  he  perceived  them  to  be  so.  To  realize 
them  in  terms  of  human  conduct  it  is  not  so  impor- 
tant to  establish  the  exact  degree  of  the  sonship  of 
Jesus,  but  to  be  able  to  know  that  relation  for  our- 
selves as  the  most  poignant  of  human  realities. 
Whether,  indeed,  we  are  the  stream  proceeding  from 
the  source  of  Life,  or  midges  dancing  upon  it? 
Twenty  centuries  have  not  produced  the  kingdom 
out  of  an  evangelical  system  of  believing  what  some- 
body wrote  down  of  what  somebody  reported  that 
Jesus  said.  Comes  now  the  untried  experiment  of 
establishing  it  in  the  things  that  Jesus  believed. 
Much  the  dull-hearted  time  to  which  he  came  has 
lost  to  us,  but  this  remains. 

He  believed  in  man  and  in  God  the  Father,  friend 

of  the  soul  of  man.   He  believed  in  the  future,but  he 

211 


THE    MAN   JESUS 


believed  also  in  Here  and  Now.  He  believed  that  the 
ills  of  this  world  are  curable  while  we  are  in  the  world 
by  no  other  means  than  the  spirit  of  Truth  and  Broth- 
erliness  working  its  lawful  occasions  among  men. 

§ 

This  was  that  man  approved  of  God  whom  Peter 
preached,  standing  in  Solomon's  porch  opposite  the 
Gate  Beautiful,  before  Paul  came  interpreting  the 
new  experiences  which  Christianity  brought  in 
terms  of  an  inherited  concept.  Thus  they  spoke 
of  him  while  they  still  thought  of  his  death  as 
originating  in  the  cruelty  and  wickedness  of  the 
Levitical  party,  before  any  one  seems  to  have  im- 
agined that  he  died  for  our  sins  or  that,  in  dying,  he 
contributed  any  more  to  the  kingdom  than  his  life 
showed  forth;  before  he  began  to  be  spoken  of  as 
they  spoke  of  Hadrian  and  Trajan  and  Augustus,  as 
God  and  Saviour;  before  the  poor  and  simple  learned 
to  think  of  him  in  terms  of  the  poor  and  simple — 
True  Vine,  Bread  of  Life,  Good  Shepherd.  They 
thought  of  him  as  a  man  appointed  for  a  certain 
task,  sent  by  God,  a  Jew,  not  establishing  a  new 
religion,  but  clarifying  and  renewing  the  faith  of 
their  fathers,  adding  to  their  objective  idea  of  sin 
as  a  violation  of  law,  his  subjective  concept  of  it 
as  a  breach  of  at-one-ness  with  the  Father.  To 
Peter  and  the  rest  of  them  Christianity  was  a  heal- 
ing of  this  breach  through  faith  in  Jesus  as  dead  and 

212 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


alive  again.  This  for  them  was  the  kingdom;  not 
the  overthrow  of  one  form  by  another,  but  the  flux 
of  all  forms,  pomps,  empires,  societies,  in  the  re- 
demption of  Life  from  the  bondage  of  Things. 

All  this  began  to  be  changed  very  soon,  almost  in 
the  lifetime  of  the  apostles,  but  before  the  simple 
earlier  belief  had  become  entangled  in  the  ebullient 
new  life  of  the  church  it  had  been  gathered  up  and 
kept  for  us  as  sacred  relics  are  kept  on  silver  altars. 
It  had  been  embodied  in  a  myth  of  such  naive  and 
tender  beauty  that  still,  after  twenty  centuries,  one 
touches  it  reverently,  knowing  that  the  world  has 
not  produced  its  like. 

It  is  not  always  possible  to  trust  the  objective 
reports  of  men  as  unlettered  and  untrained  of  mind 
as  were  those  who  stood  nearest  to  Jesus.  Their 
wits  move  too  close  to  the  earth;  sentiment  and  ob- 
servation meet  the  intelligence  with  one  indistin- 
guishable impact.  They  report  what  they  sense 
rather  than  what  they  see  and  know,  and  the  sense 
is  often  limited  by  the  limitation  of  their  outlook. 
But  in  matters  which  come  so  close  to  the  people  as 
did  the  experiences  of  early  Christianity,  we  can 
always  trust  their  myth-making.  For  a  myth  is  a 
report  of  the  soul's  essential  traffic  with  the  Invisible 
Forces,  prefigured  in  human  incident.  Before  all 
the  actors  in  it  had  been  gathered  with  those  who 
slept,  there  began  to  be  circulated  a  myth  about  the 

213 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


coming  of  Jesus  which  holds,  as  insects  are  held  in 
amber,  every  vital  element  of  the  faith  which  was 
entertained  by  those  most  nearly  touched  by  it. 
And  just  as  the  story  which  Jesus  himself  told  of  his 
struggle  on  the  mount  of  the  Wilderness,  was  a  long 
time  arriving  at  a  material  interpretation,  so  the 
story  which  arose  concerning  the  birth  of  Jesus  was 
two  or  three  centuries  in  passing  from  its  purely 
spiritual  significance  to  historical  acceptance.  By 
such  acceptance  it  was  preserved  to  us  intact,  to  re- 
veal to  our  time  the  profound  and  simple  concept 
of  the  place  of  Jesus  in  human  consideration. 

It  begins  with  an  attempt  to  derive  the  descent 
of  Jesus  from  all  history  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on 
the  other,  to  present  his  sonship  with  God  in  terms 
with  which  the  time  was  familiar.  They  were  world 
terms  in  the  sense  that  no  tribe  at  any  time  has 
found  a  more  expressive  figure  for  the  glad  surrender 
of  the  race  to  divine  use,  than  the  yielding  of  women 
to  their  supremest  service.  To  be  filled  with  the 
Spirit  as  the  mother  is  filled  with  the  hope  of  new 
being, — this  it  is  to  be  fruitful  toward  God,  to  pro- 
duce the  ultimate  Brotherhood.  In  some  such  way  all 
simple  people  have  expressed  it.  The  story  told  by 
Matthew  and  Luke  goes  further  and  exhibits  the 
studious  search  of  the  scientific  for  the  Truth,  and 
their  amazement  to  find  it — is  not  this  where  all  the 
wisdom  of  the  schools  has  landed  us? — with  the  ass 

214 


THE    MAN    JESUS 


and  the  lowing  kine,  a  child  in  a  manger.  So  far 
the  story  might  have  come  out  of  any  nation,  but 
only  one  could  have  added  the  prophetic  touch  of 
truth  hid  from  the  wise  and  revealed  to  near-by 
shepherds,  or  have  seen  in  the  figure  of  Herod  all 
privilege  striking  blind  and  large  at  the  new  birth 
which  threatens  it,  slaying  the  innocent  as  in  how 
many  rages  of  privilege  it  is  slaughtered,  while  yet 
the  eternal  Hope  escapes,  fleeing  into  Egypt,  nursed 
and  husbanded  by  the  people. 

By  such  means  even  while  the  descendants  of 
Mary  lived  and  the  grandnephews  of  Jesus  worked 
their  Galilean  farm,  was  the  intimate  teaching  of 
Jesus  kept  in  remembrance.  Thus  in  the  wrappings 
of  twenty  centuries  is  preserved  to  us  the  seed  of 
the  kingdom  that  is  not  to  be  circumscribed  by 
legislation,  but  must  be  entered  into  by  personal 
determination.  To  some  such  knowledge  of  it  we 
must  return  if  we  would  see  it  advanced  in  our  gen- 
eration. For  Christianity  is  not  a  system  of  theol- 
ogy, but  a  way  of  life  in  which  the  validity  of  your 
relation  to  God  is  witnessed  in  your  relation  to 
your  neighbor. 


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